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Notes of a -Watcher

The Great Urantia Mystery

o holy offered to the The book's first two thirds concern Western world in the past few cosmology and the history of Urantia N centuries is thicker, heavier, or (pronounced you-ran'-sha), the name stranger than The Urantia Book. This for . We live on the 606th planet 2,097-page, 4.3-lb. volume purports to in a system called Satania, which be written entirely by extraterrestrials includes 619 imperfect, evolving and channeled through an unknown worlds. Urantia's grand . To members of the Urantia number is 5,342,482,337,666. Satan- Brotherhood, a steadily, quietly grow- ia, with its headquarters at Jerusem, ing headquartered in Chicago, the is in the constellation of Norlatiadek, book supposedly contains the earth's part of the evolving universe of fifth from , superior to Nebadon. Nebadon in turn belongs to mainline Christianity and destined to a superuniverse called Orvonton. transform the world. Orvonton and six other superuni- Nothing could persuade me to read verses, each unfinished and still every line of this monstrous mish- evolving, revolve around the central mash of claptrap interspersed with universe of Havona. At the core of puddles of pious platitudes, but I have Havona is the flat, timeless, motion- perused it carefully enough to get the less Isle of Paradise. This is the drift of its wild science-fiction themes. dwelling place of the Great I AM, the In a way, the book is more amusing ultimate, eternal, infinite Deity. His than the , translated triune nature (Father, Son, and Spirit) from hieroglyphics by is symbolized on the Brotherhood's with the aid of a pair of magic stationery by three concentric blue spectacles called the Urim and the circles. Thummim. It is almost as funny as The Urantia Book swarms with a the ravings of L. Ron Hubbard or Sun thousand neologisms, but they lack , the channeled fiddle-faddle of the music of the made-up names in or J. Zebra Knight, or the fantasies of Lord Dunsany or the work of such earlier mountebanks James Branch Cabell and the punning as and Madame humor of Finnegans Wake. Below I AM Blavatsky. Indeed it may be the are billions of lesser and , largest, most fantastic chunk of including a finite deity who is evolving channeled moonshine ever to be toward becoming the Supreme Being in one volume. of all evolving . Pages would

124 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 14 be needed to list all their generic "repersonalized" and live in Jerusem. names. There are the Truth Reveal- Like the Koran and the Book of ers, the Mystery Monitors, the Uni- Mormon, The Urantia Book retells Old versal Censors, the Divine Coun- Testament yarns, but with many more selors, the Perfectors of Wisdom, the corrections and embellishments. Ancient of Days, and a hundred Human are created at birth. others. When we die, our souls and their Technical Advisors include Super- Thought Adjusters survive. Thought naphim, Seconaphim, Tertiaphim, Adjusters are indwelling "fragments" Omniaphim, Seraphim, Cherubim, of God. In due time we are reas- and Sanobim. The Master Physical sembled on another planet, the start Controllers (some are machines) are of a long series of from the Power Directors, Mechanical planet to planet, universe to universe, Controllers, Energy Transformers, until we finally reach Paradise, where Energy Transmitters, Primary Asso- we fuse with God. Guardian angels ciators, Secondary Associators, Fran- and indwelling Thought Adjusters dalanks, and Chronoldeks. On help us along the way. The pilgrimage Urantia's Advisory Council are is not monotonous. There be Onagar, Masant, Onamonalonton, endless adventures and surprises. Orlandof, Porshsunta, Singlangton, Neologisms contaminate every Fantad, Orvonon, Adam, Eve, Enoch, page: mind-gravity circuit, absonity, Moses, , Machiventa Melchiz- reflectivity, trinitization, eventuation, edek, John the Baptist, and 1-2-3 the finaliters, abandonters, tabamantia, First. midwayers, grandfada, everywhere- Lucifer, one of three archangels ness, ultimate quartan integration, who rebelled, is now the deposed and hundreds more. The authors of sovereign of Satania, named after what cult members call "The Papers" Satan, his first lieutenant. Under have a curious compulsion to divide Satan are lesser rebels, such as Cali- things into sevens. The Thought gastia and Beelzebub. All these fallen Adjusters, for instance, come in seven angels are now imprisoned on Satania. flavors: virgin, advanced, supreme, Some have repented. Those who vanished, liberated, fused, and person- never repent will eventually be anni- alized. Here is a sample gem of opaque hilated. prose: Urantia's first two humans were not Adam and Eve. They were the The triodity of actuality continues black-eyed twins Andon and Fonta, to function directly in the post- children of beasts. The Garden of Havona epochs; Paradise gravity Eden was not established until almost grasps the basic units of material existence, the spirit gravity of the a million years later. Adam and Eve Eternal Son operates directly upon were eight feet tall, had blue eyes, and the fundamental values of spirit bodies that shimmered with light. existence, and the mind gravity of Their offspring founded what the the Conjoint Actor unerringly book calls the "Violet race." Although clutches all vital meanings of intel- Adam and Eve disobeyed higher lectual existence. authorities by eating the forbidden fruit, there was no "fall of man." It There are huge sections of phony is unthinkable that a loving God would science. X-rays, we are told, disinte- allow us to suffer for the of Adam grate atoms at the sun's core. The and Eve. The pair have since been sun's "crust" as well as the entire

Winter 1990 125 cosmos is permeated with calcium. An consists of a hundred smaller units called "ultimatons." And so on. The last third of the book fleshes out in vast detail the life and teachings of . It seems that Paul, , and others outrageously distorted this history, but records supplied by the guardian of the Apostle Andrew have set straight. We learn such things as that the young Jesus toured the Roman world accompanied by Gonad and Ganid, natives of India. The Man of Galilee was none other than Michael of Nebadon, one of hundreds of thousands of Sons of the Eternal Son, who is part of the ultimate . He was the creator William S. Sadler (1964) of our local universe. Coming to Urantia was his seventh and last is gaining new recruits, thanks to the incarnation as one of God's creatures. current channeling craze. More inter- Many of Jesus' miracles had natural estingly, the book's origin is a capital explanations. He did not turn water mystery. No one knows who wrote to wine—he just called for wine—but it. the miracle of the loaves and fishes The book was published in 1955 was genuine. After he cured a lunatic, at the instigation of one of the a dog chased a herd of swine into the strangest characters in our nation's sea, giving rise to the legend that religious history. He was William devils left the man to enter the pigs. Samuel Sadler (1875-1969), surgeon, Lazarus was the only person Jesus psychiatrist, and one-time ordained raised from the dead (the others were Seventh-Day Adventist minister who merely sleeping). Thanks to Lazarus's held prominent posts in Adventist Personalized Adjuster, he was allowed hospitals. He was a close associate of to reenter his corpse. He lived to be the church's inspired prophetess Ellen 67, finally dying of the same disease Gould White. Because Adventists that first killed him. vigorously condemn Spiritualism and Although Jesus was crucified, his the occult, Sadler was impelled to death was in no way a sacrificial blood write two books debunking such atonement. Original is another of things: The Truth About Spiritualism the Bible's grave errors. After Christ's (1923) and The Mind at Mischief: Tricks death, entities rolled the stone from and Deceptions of the Subconscious and How the sepulchre and snatched his body. to Cope with Them (1929). When Jesus reappeared to his follow- In an Appendix to The Mind at ers, it was in a reconstituted form. Mischief Sadler writes that with one Eventually he will return to Urantia, or two exceptions "all cases of but we have no inkling of when or phenomena which have come under where. my observation have turned out to Why do I waste time on such a be those of auto-psychism." By this pretentious, preposterous tome? Two he means the influence of the subcon- reasons. One, the Urantia movement scious. One phenomenon he could not

126 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 14 debunk involved an unnamed man who while in a deep trance became a "clearing house for the coming and going of alleged extraplanetary per- sonalities." Sadler goes on to say that "all the information imparted through this source has proved to be consistent within itself. ... It is essentially Christian and is, on the whole, entirely harmonious with the known scientific facts and truths of this age." Was this unknown man Sadler himself? Could it have been his wife, her identity concealed by calling her a man? (His wife, Lena Kellogg, was the niece of Dr. John Kellogg, creator of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. He was a William S. Sadler, Jr. loyal Adventist until Ellen White These higher beings have refused to excommunicated him.) All we know use their own names and have only is that in the early twenties Sadler specified their type of being in the started in Chicago a group of some universe. There are only a few of us 150 people called "The Forum" to still living who were in touch with study the new . His son, this phenomenon in the beginning, William Sadler, Jr., a psychiatrist (he and when we die, the knowledge of died in 1963), was the Forum's first it will die with us. Then the book will president and the author of two books exist as a great spiritual mystery, and about the Urantia papers. The Broth- no human will know the manner in erhood's current headquarters is a which it came about." three-floor brick mansion in Chicago To this day the origin of the book that was the home of both Sadler remains a total enigma. Here is all the senior and his son. Brotherhood will say about it. I quote Harold Sherman, an Arkansas from their pamphlet "The Urantia psychic, was a Forum member. In his Book: The Question of Origin": book How to Know What to Believe he Who the human being was whose devotes a wild chapter to a conver- versatile Thought Adjuster aided in sation with the elder Sadler. Sadler bringing the fifth epochal revelation said that the extraterrestrials were to our world will never be known eager to answer questions. Forum because the revelators asked the members submitted 4,000. A few few people who knew to take a weeks later the trance channeler pledge of secrecy. They did not want produced 472 handwritten pages that any human beings to be mystically answered all 4,000 questions. More associated with The Urantia Book. It questions and answers followed until is amazing that the authors of the the revelations stopped—we are not Urantia Papers tell us as much as told why—in the mid-thirties. they do. Upon reflection, you will recognize the persistent questions "The book is eventually to be about the unrevealed "details" published," Sadler told Sherman, concerning the origin of the book "without any human personalities to as a psychological parallel to the re- be identified with it in any way and occurring demand put to Jesus, no authorship to be ascribed to it. "Show us a sign."

Winter 1990 127 Now let us turn to the human convinced that Ellen Gould White's side of the story which may be visions were delusions. And this was interesting, but has no spiritual the man who later gave to the world significance. In preparation for the biggest blast of subconscious presenting the papers of the fifth rubbish ever put in print! In 1958 epochal revelation and placing them Sadler wrote: "While we are not at in the custody of a responsible group of human beings, the reve- to tell you even the little we lators made contact with a small know about the technique of the group of people in Chicago. The production of the Urantia papers, we leaders of this group were asked by are not forbidden to tell you how we the revelators not only to refrain did not get these documents." He then from revealing the identity of the lists nine phenomena that he says individual associated with the pres- were not involved: automatic (that is, entation of the papers, but also not subconscious) writing, talking, hear- to discuss details related to the ing, seeing, thinking, remembering, arrival of the papers. We will, there- acting, personalization, and combined fore, never know just where or how the papers were received. Even and associated psychic states. these early leaders were puzzled; no Many aspects of Adventist doc- human being knows just how this trine, such as the denial of and materialization was executed. The the sleeping between death and reason given for this request of reconstitution, appear in The Urantia secrecy is the revelators are deter- Book. In describing Jesus on the cross, mined that future generations shall have The Urantia Book wholly free an alien entity quotes him as telling from mortal connections. the good thief: "Verily, verily, I say to you today, you shall sometime be with me in Paradise." In the King Like John Kellogg, Sadler broke James Bible a comma appears before with the Adventists when he became the word today, not after, and there

128 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 14 is no "sometime," implying that on Jr.'s two books are obtainable from the that very day the thief will enter Para- Second Society Foundation, 333 N. dise. Adventists insist that the comma Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60601. was misplaced. In keeping with this The senior Sadler was the author view, The Urantia Book shifts the of dozens of popular books on health, comma. This is one of many indica- diet, and sex, many of them written tions that a former Seventh-Day Ad- in collaboration with his wife. They ventist channeled the Urantia papers. bear such titles as Modern Psychiatry Now in its ninth printing, The (896 pages); Cause and Cure of Headaches, Urantia Book can be obtained by sending Backaches, and Constipation; and Sex Life $36.50 (this includes postage) to the Before and After Marriage. Only one of Urantia Foundation, 533 Diversey his books is now in print (reissued by Parkway, Chicago, IL 60614. (A Gordon Press): Race Decadence: An French edition costs $40.65.) The cult Examination of the Causes of Racial Degen- also issues books, pamphlets, study eration in the United States. You will find aids, a quarterly journal, and a direc- entries on him in early editions of tory of study groups you can join. The Who's Who in America and in the ninth Concordex (an index to the book) and edition of American Men of Science. J^^ Paramony (25,000 cross-references between The Urantia Book and the Bible) are available from the Jesusonian Martin Gardner's latest book is How Not Foundation, 1790 Thirtieth Street, to Test a Psychic (Prometheus Books, Boulder, CO 80301. William Sadler, 1989).

Third CSICOP European Conference in Brussels, Belgium, Saturday, 11,1990 at the Free University of Brussels 9:00 A.M. - 12:00 NOON and 2:00 - 5:00 P.M. Among the topics discussed will be: , Astronomy and Space Age , and Health Cures. Among the speakers will be: Susan Blackmore, Univ. of Bristol (U.K.); Henri Broch, Univ. of Nice (France); Jean Dommanget, Royale Observatory (Belgium) Cornelis de Jager, Univ. of Utrecht (Netherlands); Jean-Claude Pecker, College de France (France); A. Gertler, Inst, for Forensic Medicine, Berlin (E. Germany); Ray Hyman, Univ. of Oregon (U.SA); Jean-Claude Pecker, College de France (France); Paul Kurtz, State Univ. of New York (U.SA); Vladimir Llvov (USSR); Piero Angeli, television commentator (Italy). Other speakers will be added.

7:00 P.M.: C S I C O P Banquet at the Brussels Hilton (optional) REGISTRATION: $45 (students $25). ACCOMMODATIONS: Special rates available at the Brussels Hilton Hotel. For further details, contact Mary Rose Hays at: CSICOP, P.O. Box 229, Buffalo, NY 14215. Or call (716) 834-3222.

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