100+ Years of Evolution and the Urantia Revelation.

[This is an ongoing project, started in 2023.]

Bold in quoted material reflects editorial emphasis.

Table of Contents
Introduction
1905—1915
1916—1925
1926—1935
1936—1945
1946—1955
1956—1965
1966—1975
1976—1985
1986—1995
1996—2005
2006—2015
2016—present

Introduction

This by-decade historical review is geared towards facilitating general understandings and comparative perspectives on US (and global) culture and the development of the Urantia movement.

Specific areas of interest include:

• The history of communication, transportation, military, and computer technologies.
• Nuclear accidents. (Rated on a 1-7 scale, with 4 and above creating at least local problems.)
• The undiscovered forces referenced at 42:8.6 and other places.
• The history of influential musicians, music, and music technology, especially as it might relate to a musician acting as the cultural catalyst referenced at (44:1.15).
• The history of aliens and UFO’s.
• The history of religious movements, religious liberties, and the use of entheogens.
• The importance of family and its associated binary sex roles.
• The importance of free speech and other foundational needs for a democratic culture.
• Race relations and human genetics.
• The other-than-human genetic health of our planet.
• Evolutionary development of the Urantia revelation.

Pause to consider:

(48:4.7)  3. Prophetic joy. It will perhaps be difficult for mortals to envisage this phase of humor, but we do get a peculiar satisfaction out of the assurance “that all things work together for good”—for spirits and morontians as well as for mortals. This aspect of celestial humor grows out of our faith in the loving overcare of our superiors and in the divine stability of our Supreme Directors.

1905—1915

Culture

During this decade: 40+ states form commissions to oversee electric utility regulations, radio technology spreads across the world, and motion pictures become popular in the US.

1905: AMA establishes a council to set standards for drug manufacturing and advertising.
1906: Washington D.C. passes the nation’s first cannabis restrictions.
1906: The Pure Food and Drug Act required that certain specified drugs, including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and cannabis, to be accurately labeled with contents and dosage.
1906: Stanley Steamer race car sets 127.7 mph land speed record.  
1908: Ford Model T enters the automotive market.
1909: First measurement of the charge of electrons.  
1910: US population demographics: Non Hispanic White 88.1%. Black 11.7%. Hispanic .9%. Asian .2%. Native .3%.
1910: Paul Ehrlich discovered the cure (Salvarsan) for the disease syphilis. In medicine, this was the first specific chemotherapeutic agent for a disease caused by a bacterium. 
1914: WWI begins.
1914: The Impersonal Life by Anonymous (Joseph Brenner), the first of a series, encourages a stillness practice to foster the reception of Thought Adjuster contact.
1915: First US coast-to-coast telephone call is made.

Revelation

1906: The Sadlers are awarded medical degrees and set up their practices together in Battle Creek. They grow increasingly disenchanted with Adventism.
1907: The Sadlers leave Battle Creek to found the Chicago Institute of Physiologic Therapeutics, “to render diagnostic and surgical services, plus physical and psychological therapeutic assistance” on referrals.
1911: Dr. Sadler describes his first encounter with the “sleeping subject” in the Appendix from “The Mind at Mischief.”

Commentary

Culture

Prior to the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, many drugs had been sold as patent medicines with secret ingredients or misleading labels. Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and other such drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they were labeled. It is estimated that sale of patent medicines containing opiates decreased by 33% after labeling was mandated. Coca-Cola still maintains a special license from the US government, allowing them to process cocoa leaves. The medicinal aspects are extracted and turned into a numbing product used by dentists, the inert constituents are then used in their beverage formula.

Revelation

1) Excerpt from the Appendix of “The Mind at Mischief:

“I was brought in contact with it, in the summer of 1911, and I have had it under my observation more or less ever since, having been present at probably 250 of the night sessions, many of which have been attended by a stenographer who made voluminous notes.”

Emma Christensen (Christy) is widely believed to be the stenographer referred to in “The Mind at Mischief’ for these early communications.

2) Consider, on a truth from any source basis, the following Unity Treatise commentary:

“… Although it is not fully known by humans why the Revelators chose the members of the contact commission, when considering choices of men and women for such work, they prefer families. The family they selected to receive the Fifth Epochal Revelation was the Kellogg-Sadler family of Chicago, starting with two married couples.

“By the time they were appointed as the Contact Commission, after years of preliminary contact, these men and women included their socially adopted daughter, a daughter of a minister, and later the son of the Sadlers, who participated after the book project was underway. They were selected not simply for their living in a central cosmopolitan area, not for being religious, nor for being highly intelligent; they were selected mainly for the reason that they were all of natures, minds, and temperaments that would naturally preserve, conserve, and virtually keep secret a project that would span fifty years until fruition. Although these valuable attributes were helpful to receive the book, these same attributes eventually led to the downfall of both Urantia Foundation and Urantia Brotherhood when once the revelation became a book.

“The trustees of Urantia Foundation and executive committee of Urantia Brotherhood were derived from both the Contact Commission members and the Forum of men and women who asked the questions that made the book possible and had read the papers before they were ―”made book.” However, these Forum men and women continued on the same path based on the inherited attributes of the Contact Commissioners, who continued in their indoctrination of Forum members with their need to protect, conserve, and generally keep secret The Urantia Book. And they continued this attitude long after the revelation was printed and published as The Urantia Book. Whereas the book should have been given to the world freely with love and with open welcoming arms, leaders cautioned everyone to continue practices that had become indoctrinated beliefs. Some developed attitudes of mistrust, anxiety, and even fear.” (pgs. 3-4)

(70:2.9)  … Olden wars strengthened nations, but modern struggles disrupt civilized culture. Ancient warfare resulted in the decimation of inferior peoples; the net result of modern conflict is the selective destruction of the best human stocks. … War has served many valuable purposes in the past, it has been an indispensable scaffolding in the building of civilization, but it is rapidly becoming culturally bankrupt—incapable of producing dividends of social gain in any way commensurate with the terrible losses attendant upon its invocation.

(70:2.11)  The nations of Urantia have already entered upon the gigantic struggle between nationalistic militarism and industrialism, and in many ways this conflict is analogous to the agelong struggle between the herder-hunter and the farmer. But if industrialism is to triumph over militarism, it must avoid the dangers which beset it. The perils of budding industry on Urantia are:

(70:2.12)  1. The strong drift toward materialism, spiritual blindness.
(70:2.13)  2. The worship of wealth-power, value distortion.
(70:2.14)  3. The vices of luxury, cultural immaturity.
(70:2.15)  4. The increasing dangers of indolence, service insensitivity.
(70:2.16)  5. The growth of undesirable racial softness, biologic deterioration.
(70:2.17)  6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery, personality stagnation. Labor is ennobling but drudgery is benumbing.

(69:8.10)  Today, men are not social slaves, but thousands allow ambition to enslave them to debt. Involuntary slavery has given way to a new and improved form of modified industrial servitude.

See Topical Studies: Food For Thought and Genetic Introduction, Evolution, and Mutations: a Urantia Book perspective.

Integration

1) Given how seers also function as prophets (critics of the culture), consider the possibilities inherent with an anonymous source. Notice how the Teaching Mission is inconsistent with this pattern because the “receivers” are known individuals.

Even if you do not resonate in a positive way with the politics, interpretations, and opinions associated with the “Q anon” cultural phenomenon, consider the powerful social dynamics at play here related to an anonymous source. (“Q drops” are the source of the cultural development. “Anons” are people who interpret the Q drops. Once people outside the anonymous chatrooms started interpreting the Q drops, the anons were conflated with Q by the media, so that Q could be attacked for things that anons said.)

Is the function of an anonymous seer likely to be limited to the Urantia revelation? If so, what would this mean in relationship to the prophesied musician-prophet referenced in 44:1.15 and the general topic of how prophets emerge whenever cultures “oppose general education and attempt to thwart scientific progress.” (90:2.9)

2) Consider that one of the greatest racial harmony challenges concerns the difference between the general genetic potential of hybridizing humanity and the actual genetic decline of humanity due to excessive multiplication of subaverage individuals, which leads to a overall deterioration of the gene pool.

Consider the decline pattern of Non Hispanic Whites in the United States:

1910: 88%
1950: 87%
1980: 80%
2000: 69%
2020: 58%

See Topical Study: Health and Healing for how it relates to:

(49:1.7)  The process of planetary evolution is orderly and controlled. The development of higher organisms from lower groupings of life is not accidental. Sometimes evolutionary progress is temporarily delayed by the destruction of certain favorable lines of life plasm carried in a selected species. It often requires ages upon ages to recoup the damage occasioned by the loss of a single superior strain of human heredity. These selected and superior strains of living protoplasm should be jealously and intelligently guarded when once they make their appearance. And on most of the inhabited worlds these superior potentials of life are valued much more highly than on Urantia.

Consider the commentaries related to the downfall of Greek and Roman civilization.

(98:1.1)  The Salem missionaries might have built up a great religious structure among the Greeks had it not been for their strict interpretation of their oath of ordination, a pledge imposed by Machiventa which forbade the organization of exclusive congregations for worship, and which exacted the promise of each teacher never to function as a priest, never to receive fees for religious service, only food, clothing, and shelter. When the Melchizedek teachers penetrated to pre-Hellenic Greece, they found a people who still fostered the traditions of Adamson and the days of the Andites, but these teachings had become greatly adulterated with the notions and beliefs of the hordes of inferior slaves that had been brought to the Greek shores in increasing numbers. This adulteration produced a reversion to a crude animism with bloody rites, the lower classes even making ceremonial out of the execution of condemned criminals.

(133:0.2)  … On this journey they encountered all sorts of human beings. Many noble Roman citizens and Greek colonists lived along this road, but already the progeny of great numbers of inferior slaves were beginning to make their appearance.

(133:5.12)  The sojourn in Athens was pleasant and profitable, but it was not particularly fruitful in its human contacts. Too many of the Athenians of that day were either intellectually proud of their reputation of another day or mentally stupid and ignorant, being the offspring of the inferior slaves of those earlier periods when there was glory in Greece and wisdom in the minds of its people. Even then, there were still many keen minds to be found among the citizens of Athens.

(195:3.8)  The spiritual impetus of nominally accepting Hellenized Christianity came to Rome too late to prevent the well-started moral decline or to compensate for the already well-established and increasing racial deterioration. This new religion was a cultural necessity for imperial Rome, and it is exceedingly unfortunate that it did not become a means of spiritual salvation in a larger sense.

3) The Impersonal Life was one of Elvis Presley’s favorite books. Its author, Joseph Brenner, introduced the Knowledge and Teachings of Impersonal Life (also known as the “I AM” Teaching) to the world in this, his first, book. In 1964, Elvis was introduced to the book by hairdresser-turned-guru, Larry Geller, who also introduced him to The Urantia Book.

4) Consider that the initiation of the Urantia revelation project was timed with the advancement of science into subatomic physics. Consider how it was timed with the cultural consolidation of medical practices.

1916—1925

Culture

1917: Smith-Hughes Act passes, providing federal funding for vocational education. Large manufacturing corporations push this, because they want to remove job skill training from the apprenticeship programs of trade unions and bring it under their own control.
1918: WWI ends.
1920: 19th Amendment enfranchises women as citizens.
1920: US prohibition on alcohol begins.
1920: KDKA in Pittsburgh becomes first US broadcast radio station.
1924: An act of Congress granted citizenship to any Native Americans born within the United States.
1924: First steps towards genetic cloning were taken. The Nobel Prize came in 1935.
1925: International conference at the Hague on opium trafficking also included restrictions on cannabis, which was designated “Indian hemp.”
1925: First television signal is transmitted.

Revelation

1921: The Sadlers move their practice 533 Diversey Parkway in Chicago.
1923: On Feb. 11, the Forum meets for the first time. 
1924: On Feb. 11, following an inspection by Tabamantia, Machiventa Melchizedek announces that an epochal revelation is to be developed utilizing the process of communication which had been refined in conjunction with the midwayers since 1911. Up to this point, contacts had been with midwayers and student visitors.
1925: The Forum is formally established in September and includes Clyde Bedell as one of its first thirty members.

Commentary

Culture

“In Britain, conscription resulted in the calling up of nearly every physically fit man in Britain—six of ten million eligible. Of these, about 750,000 died. Most deaths were those of young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers.” “The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas and phosgene. Relatively few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing (as opposed to tactical bombing) were both outlawed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination.” (Wikipedia)

Consider the cost to humanity’s gene pool and how sobering that all was for the US. Whether one calls it genocide or war, 1.5 million Armenian Christians were eliminated from that region. Consider what this means in the context of Urantia Book teachings on race and religion.

Revelation

1) Meredith Sprunger writes: “Soon after the first Urantia Papers were presented, the revelators requested that they form a closed group. Each member of the Forum was asked to sign a pledge which read: “We acknowledge our pledge of secrecy, renewing our promise not to discuss the Urartia revelations or their subject matter with anyone save active Forum members, and to take no notes of such matter as it is read or discussed at the Forum meetings, or make copies or notes of what we have personally read.'” Membership tickets were issued and the charter membership numbered thirty. From time to time new members were received into the Forum after being interviewed by its officers and signing the pledge of secrecy. During the Forum’s existence its membership rose to a total of 486. Members of the Forum were permitted to come to 533 Diversey Parkway and read the papers, but they were never taken from the building.”

Following an inspection by Tabamantia, Machiventa Melchizedek announces the fact that an epochal revelation is to be developed utilizing the process of communication that had been refined, in conjunction with the midwayers, since 1911. Up to this point, contacts had been with midwayers and student visitors. Consider as a possibility that the pool of visitors and observers referenced below may have factored into this process:

(35:3.22) … While the young universe of Nebadon stands low in the scale of universes as regards spiritual achievement and high ethical development, nevertheless, our administrative troubles have so turned the whole universe into a vast clinic for other near-by creations that thethe Melchizedek colleges are thronged with student visitors and observers from other realms. …

2) A website advertising Clyde Bedell’s lessons on advertising states:

“The first name recorded in the National Retail Advertising Hall of Fame was Clyde Bedell’s. Among six nationally known nominees he was given 65 percent of all 2000 votes cast from sales and promoting executives.
“Born in 1898, Bedell found himself in the forefront of the advertising industry by the 1930’s and 40’s.
“He taught businesses to sell and advertise more effectively and intelligently, always in accord with his basic belief: “good selling is serving”.” (PDF)

Consider the value of having this level of expertise available for the transition from prepublication secrecy to post publication evangelism.

Integration

1) Consider the timing of this revelation in relationship to the development of cloning technologies, eventually leading to genetic manipulation technologies.

2) Consider how passage of the Smith-Hughs Act worked to entrench the type of industrial slavery, warned about references above. Also note how this relates to perspectives provided from the Government On A Neighboring Planet paper:

5. Industrial Organization

(72:5.1)  The industrial situation among this people is far from their ideals; capital and labor still have their troubles, but both are becoming adjusted to the plan of sincere co-operation. On this unique continent the workers are increasingly becoming shareholders in all industrial concerns; every intelligent laborer is slowly becoming a small capitalist.

(72:5.3)  These people have recently developed new techniques for the adjustment of industrial misunderstandings and for the correction of economic abuses which are marked improvements over their older methods of settling such problems. Violence has been outlawed as a procedure in adjusting either personal or industrial differences. Wages, profits, and other economic problems are not rigidly regulated, but they are in general controlled by the industrial legislatures, while all disputes arising out of industry are passed upon by the industrial courts.

(72:5.4)  The industrial courts are only thirty years old but are functioning very satisfactorily. The most recent development provides that hereafter the industrial courts shall recognize legal compensation as falling in three divisions:

(72:5.5)  1. Legal rates of interest on invested capital.
(72:5.6)  2. Reasonable salary for skill employed in industrial operations.
(72:5.7)  3. Fair and equitable wages for labor.

(72:5.8)  These shall first be met in accordance with contract, or in the face of decreased earnings they shall share proportionally in transient reduction. And thereafter all earnings in excess of these fixed charges shall be regarded as dividends and shall be prorated to all three divisions: capital, skill, and labor.

1926—1935

Culture

1927: First transatlantic telephone call is made from the US to the United Kingdom.
1928: First television broadcast, but the technology was not wide spread until after WWII.
1928: Frederick Griffith discovered bacterial transformation and this established the foundation of molecular genetics.
1930’s: Nylons were developed by a research team headed by an American chemist, Wallace H. Carothers, working for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The successful production of a useful fiber by chemical synthesis from compounds readily available from air, water, and coal or petroleum stimulated expansion of research on polymers, leading to a rapidly proliferating family of synthetics.
1932: A survey of 150 school districts reveals that three quarters of them are using intelligence testing to place students in different academic tracks.  
1932: The first microscope for TEM (transmission electron microscopy), which was also known as a ‘supermicroscope’, was initially described by Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska.  
1933: US prohibition on alcohol ends.
1935: Alcoholics Anonymous gets started.

Revelation

1927: The Forum’s pledge of secrecy formalized.
1929: Christy joins the Sadlers at 533 Diversey Parkway.
1933: Clyde writes a five page letter to Wilfred Kellogg, outlining his concerns about how plans are going with organizational development.
1934: Parts I and II of The Urantia Book are indited. 
1935: Parts III and IV of The Urantia Book are indited.
1935: On Feb. 11, the over-all welfare and direction of The Urantia Book placed in the hands of the Seraphim of Progress for 500 years.

Commentary

Culture

Consider the implications of du Pont’s efforts to flood the textile market nylon. What impact would technological centralization of textile creation have on economic markets, the environment, whether labor was concentrated more in rural or urban areas, etc.?

Consider how intelligence testing, when used in schools or the military to determine appropriate programming options, are a way for people to transcend bigotry issues related to race, sex, ethnicity, etc. The level the playing field for the individual, while also revealing general trends among segments of the population. What are implications culturally and spiritually of rejecting what allows individuals to be accepted based on merit? What are the costs of denying the validity of insightful testing methods? What are the costs of outlawing the use of valid and insight methods for determining inherent abilities? To what degree is bigotry towards intelligence influencing the trajectory of culture and souls?

Revelation

Clyde Bedell was loyal to the revelation and to Doc Sadler. But he also early took exception to power dynamics related to the development of the revelation under Doc Sadler’s leadership. Life appointment of trustees being one of his concerns, along with the publishing power.

Integration

1) Even if the same concerns about the future were also being voiced by many human beings by the mid 1930’s, consider the following prophetic forecast, bearing in mind that the revelation was finalized after WWI and just before WWII:

(195:8.13)  The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. During the first third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.

2) 1935: Experiments on magnetic sensitivity in sharks sets up more substantial an ongoing confirmations of magnetic sensitivity in animals that begin in 1958. See UBtheNEWS: Magnetic Sensitivity Report.

1936—1945

Culture

1936—1937: The propaganda film “Reefer Madness” is release, which plays on bigotry against Mexicans as a way to introduce the word marijuana into the English lexicon. The general population does not actually understand that marijuana and cannabis, which they long have been using for hemp and medicine, are the same plant. Congress passes the Marijuana Tax Act, which effectively makes cannabis illegal in a manner that avoids legal challenges.
1938: “War Of The Worlds” radio broadcast by Orson Wells makes some people think and act like an alien invasion was taking place.
1938: Albert Hofmann synthesizes LSD.
1939: WWII starts.
1939: The twelve steps off Alcoholics Anonymous are published in The Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous).
1942: US government releases the film “Hemp for Victory,” which encourages farmers to get a special tax license to grow cannabis for its hemp during the war effort.
1943:  AMA opens an office in Washington, D.C.
1944: Joshua Lederberg and Edward Tatum demonstrated that DNA could be transferred from one bacterium to another.
1945: WWII involves the Holocaust, two atomic blasts, and an enormous death toll.

Revelation

1937: The first Easter sunrise celebration is held at Bald Knob, where a 111 ft. cross would be built in 1963, and is at the intersection crisscrossing full solar eclipses on August 21, 2017 and April 8, 2024.  
1939: The Seventy gets started. And a contract with a publisher is signed and implemented.
1939: Lena Sadler heads to the mansion worlds.
1941: Wilfred Kellogg is assigned task of negotiating with a typesetter for manufacture of printing plates for The Urantia Book. A contract is signed in September.
1942: The Forum stops functioning as reviewers of the text and starts to meet more as a study group, eventually becoming the First Urantia Society.
1943: The “Sherman Rebellion” also occurs, when Harold Sherman worked to undermine Doc Sadler’s authority by playing upon organizational dissatisfaction within the group. Clyde got caught up in it before reversing course and coming to Doc Sadler’s defense.

Commentary

Culture

Consider the influence that the War Of The Worlds event would have on psychosocial planners involved with political and military objectives both at home and abroad.

Revelation

Note how 1941 negotiations with a publisher and the discontinuation of the Forum’s work in 1942 indicates that all major elements of the text must have been finalized. This strongly suggests that all editorial changes, excepting the ongoing correction of typographical errors, had been completed.

Integration

Consider how WWII would influence interpretations of Urantia Book teachings on government, race, religion, and science. Consider the timing of the revelation in relationship to the destructive powers unleashed through the study of subatomic physics.

1946-1955

Culture

US thrives economically and becomes the dominant cultural force in the world.
Transistor radio technology develops during the middle of this time period, allowing for the first pocket transistor radio to be introduced in the early 1950’s.

1946: The twelve traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous were adopted for group governance. 
1947: A claim in June that nine flying saucers were seen near Mount Rainier sets off a wave of claims in the United States. In July, the famous Roswell, New Mexico crash landing incident occurs.
1947: Commercial television broadcasts begin.
1948: State of Israel is established.
1948: As stated on raceforward.org: “Educational Testing Service is formed, merging the College Entrance Examination Board, the Cooperative Test Service, the Graduate Records Office, the National Committee on Teachers Examinations and others, with huge grants from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations. These testing services continued the work of eugenicists like Carl Brigham (originator of the SAT) who did research “proving” that immigrants were feeble-minded.”
1948: The first use of TEM (transmission electron microscopy) in clinical virology concerned the differential diagnosis of smallpox (caused by the variola virus of the poxvirus family) and chicken pox (caused by the varicella-zoster virus of the herpes family) using fluid from the vesicles on the patients’ skin.
1950: US population demographics: Non Hispanic White 87.5%. Black 10.0%. Hispanic 2.1%. Asian .2%. Native .2%.
1950: Alcoholics Anonymous has approximately 100,000 members.
1950: Leading US evangelist, Billy Graham founds the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
1952: At Chalk River, Canada a nuclear reactor is shut off because rod failure and other issues create a Level 5 problem.
1952: Tadpoles successfully cloned.
1953: Narcotics Anonymous received permission from AA to use the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in its own program.
1953: With the determination of the structure of DNA, a new and practical aspect of microbiology suddenly became realized, and the foundations of genetic engineering were laid.
1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that segregated schools are “inherently unequal” and must be abolished. Almost 45 years later in 1998, schools, especially in the north, are as segregated as ever.
1954: Millennial anniversary of The Great Schism, which split Christianity between Greek East and Latin West.
1954: Formation of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
1955: The second edition of The Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) is published. Membership is approximately 150,000.

Revelation

1950: Urantia Foundation is formed with Bill Sadler, Jr., Emma (Christy) Christensen and Wilfred Kellogg joining from the Contact Commission. Wilfred Kellogg signs over the rights to the plates. Plates are said to be complete by Bill Sadler, Jr.
1952: Starting on Feb. 11, for at least the next 100 years, the immediate fostering of the revelation is entrusted to the Seraphim of the Churches, acting through a special commission created for this purpose. 
1954: Permission to publish the book is received by the Contact Commission, indicating that celestial personalities had taken a vow of silence regarding any further communications related to the revelation. The human aspects are to be placed in the hands of the Urantia Foundation trustees.
1955: On Feb. 11, formal arrangements were made for publication of The Urantia Book.
1955: Establishment of Urantia Brotherhood, a non profit.
1955: October 21st Urantia Brotherhood Corporation is formed.

Commentary

Culture

Consider how radio technology made it possible for musical inspiration to sweep through the modernizing world.

What is the significance of growing but minimally organized effort to address addiction with a culture that is generally theistic and anonymous?

Revelation

Consider these contexualizing commentaries:

(195:8.3)   At the time of this revelation, the prevailing intellectual and philosophical climate of both European and American life is decidedly secular—humanistic. For three hundred years Western thinking has been progressively secularized. Religion has become more and more a nominal influence, largely a ritualistic exercise. The majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual secularists.

(195:8.5)  Materialism denies God, secularism simply ignores him; at least that was the earlier attitude. More recently, secularism has assumed a more militant attitude, assuming to take the place of the religion whose totalitarian bondage it onetime resisted. Twentieth-century secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God. But beware! this godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster.

(195:6.4)   At the time of this writing the worst of the materialistic age is over; the day of a better understanding is already beginning to dawn. The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of physical realism is only a passing episode in man’s life on earth. Modern science has left true religion—the teachings of Jesus as translated in the lives of his believers—untouched. All science has done is to destroy the childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.

(176:2.6)  “… But you should be wise regarding the ripening of an age; you should be alert to discern the signs of the times. You know when the fig tree shows its tender branches and puts forth its leaves that summer is near. Likewise, when the world has passed through the long winter of material-mindedness and you discern the coming of the spiritual springtime of a new dispensation, should you know that the summertime of a new visitation draws near.

Midwayers are not celestial personalities; they are terrestrial personalities. Whether midwayers were allowed, even encouraged, to remain in contact raises questions. As well, whether Christy continued to get legitimate and/or corrupt(ed) communications is ripe for speculation.

Interestingly, the Unity Treatise, which came out in 2016, claims to be from Midwayers assigned to the Revelatory Commission. This document asserts that the plan and hope was to remain in contact but that we were not making that easy.

Unity Treatise:

“The Urantia Book was given to Urantia mortals with explicit instructions, guidelines and mandates early enough to accomplish its purpose, just as the Planetary Prince and the Adamic pair arrived early enough to
accomplish their purposes. The Planetary Prince and his staff arrived in sufficient time to aid and guide primitive men and women into racially blended superior stocks, leading them further to racial perfection on to the peak of the racial development curve in anticipation for the coming of the biologic uplifters, Adam and Eve. The Adamic pair arrived in sufficient time to produce millions of offspring for the uplifting of the existing purified and blended races of mankind to reach the biologic perfection-peak of humankind. And likewise it was the plan of the Revelators to give the fifth epochal revelation to Urantians early enough to meet the peak of the spiritual age of humankind. But all these plans of the Revelators were thwarted because they were never taken seriously. Like
the Prince and his staff and the Adamic pair, the plans and purpose of the Revelators of The Urantia Book were never carried out by Urantian leaders even to the present day.” (pg. 8)

“To understand where you are today, it would be wise to understand how you came to be here. It is not readily known, but by a few, as to why the Revelators chose the members of the contact commission that they did. As earlier explained, they were selected mainly for the reason that they were of natures, minds, and temperaments that would naturally protect, preserve, conserve, and virtually keep secret a project that would span more than fifty years until fruition. These valuable attributes that were necessary to receive the book were the same attributes that eventually led to the downfall of both Urantia Foundation and Urantia Brotherhood.

“During the scribing of The Urantia Book, the Contact Commissioners were told by the Revelators to seek out men and women who came to be known as the “Forum,” who would likewise and for the most part have the same inherited attributes, and were able to keep a “secret.” To be a Forum member one had to sign a vow and become sworn to secrecy stating that they would not reveal the revelation taking place at 533 Diversey Parkway. They were also indoctrinated further with the same, but stronger protective characteristic attributes of and by the Contact Commissioners, i.e. to preserve, conserve, protect, and otherwise keep secret the Urantia Papers until such time as publication.

“These attributes, to the dismay of the Revelators, proved to be a handicap when the book was printed and published, in as much as on and from the very first day the book was published and appeared in the first book store, the Contact Commissioners and the Forumites could not stop using these characteristic attributes. These indoctrinated tendencies continued long after the book became available, as they continued to preserve, conserve, protect, and keep secret these same Urantia Papers now called The Urantia Book. They did this from 1955 onward, remaining in PROTECT mode until a new generation of men and women came forward in the 1970s and 1980s.

“They did this even to the point of actually stationing guards outside the first book store when the first copy of The Urantia Book went on sale there to see who purchased it. As told by a Contact Commissioner: “After a whole day of not seeing anyone leave the book store with a book, they checked inside and in their horror found the book gone.” And they did this because  “They feared reprisals should a strong church get their hands on it and attack them.” The Forum members, who founded Urantia Brotherhood and were Foundation Trustees, along with the surviving Contact Commissioners, for years continued to promote the protection of The Urantia Book. These Contact Commissioners and Forumites were on the Executive Committee of the Urantia Brotherhood and were sitting Foundation Trustees promoting protection.

“Although the Revelators told the Contact Commission that there would be a slow, steady growth of the revelation as the Revelators with the planetary government began the process of assisting mortals, they never said to Contact Commission “foster a slow steady growth,” but rather, they would exclaim: “Expedite!” This was the word they used. But many of these men and women still went on governing these organizations in their own personal directions, always in protective mode, and never as mandated by the Revelators.

“The Revelators knew “whereof they speak” in that they intended to use all the powers of the unseen planetary government to lead spiritual individuals to the readers of The Urantia Book, who were committed members of Urantia Brotherhood and supporters of Urantia Foundation. They never said or meant to stop anyone or any the organizations from outwardly promoting The Urantia Book themselves or through inspirational works such as publishing music, other books, study aids, personal spiritual experiences, and so forth, as is done today. As Jesus said, “Freely you were given, freely ye shall give.” They did not understand that the best way to protect the text of the book was for it to be widely read and its teachings widely expressed.” (pgs. 11-12)

Integration

Throughout the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, UFO sightings became a global phenomenon. This was fostered by the global cultural connections, made possible by technological developments. Consider how this phenomenon generally relates to Urantia Book teachings and origins. See Topical Study: Aliens and UFO’s.

1956—1965

Culture

1956: International direct dialing technology developed.
1956: Dartmouth College hosts a conference that gets AI research funded.
1956: The AMA’s Committee on Alcoholism issued a statement calling alcoholism an illness and encouraging medical personnel and institutions to admit and treat alcoholic patients.
1956: Christianity Today begins publication.  
1957: First nuclear reactor in the US becomes operational.
1957: Kyshtym, Russia nuclear waste facility suffers a Level 6 problem. Windscale Pile, UK suffers a fire in a reactor core, creating a Level 5 problem.   
1957: The first artificial satellite is launched by the Russians. Not repeated by the US until 1962.
1957: For the first time in the US, more people travel by air than rail.
1958: Office photocopiers enter the market.
1958: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gets started within the Department of Defense and is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
1959: The Russians are the first to do a hard (crash) landing of a craft on the moon. First attempt was in 1958.
1961: Kennedy: Cuban missile crisis.
1963: John Kennedy assassinated. The official story makes no sense and questions remain.
1963: First geosynchronous communications satellite is launched.
1964: An untrue story about the US being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin is used as a pretext for involvement in the Viet Nam war.
1964: Civil Rights Act ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
1964: US makes first hard landing of a craft on the moon. First attempt was in 1961.
1965: The Beatles play Shea Stadium.
1965: Members of the Grateful Dead participate in experimental LSD parties.

Revelation

1956: The Brotherhood School for the training of teachers and leaders began classes in September.    
1958: Upon his death, Sir Hubert Wilkins, the famous explorer and first person to contribute $1000 towards publication of The Urantia Book, left a substantial parcel of land in upstate New York to be used by the Urantia Brotherhood for the construction of a seminary campus. The terms of this trust have yet to be consummated.
1959: IRS approves tax exempt (and tax deduction) status for Urantia Foundation, Urantia Brotherhood, and Urantia Brotherhood Corporation. 
1962: First French translation published by Jacques Weiss.
1963: A 111 ft. Bald Knob Cross of Peace is built in 1963, which is at the intersection crisscrossing full solar eclipses on August 21, 2017 and April 8, 2024. Easter sunrise celebrations had been held there since 1937.

Commentary

Culture

Note that the Russians were winning the space race and how this technology relates to the Cuban missile crisis. Even though technology has made it easier and human competitiveness is a constant, note that no one claims to have landed on the moon since 1972, when it was much easier to fool people about such things.
Note that there has never been a majority of Americans buying into the official story about the Kennedy assassination. Disbelief has been as high as 80%. Yet, “conspiracy theory” has a negative connotations. What does this mean?
Note that deception was used to rally support for the Viet Nam war. How much is technology, deception, and competition changing how civilization evolves?

Revelation

Note that only one translation was completed in the first ten years and that it was done privately, not organizationally. Does the following article in the Foundation’s Declaration of Trust mean that there is wisdom in being a publisher of translations or is this just standard boilerplate language for a document of this nature that any good attorney would make sure to include?

ARTICLE III: DUTIES OF TRUSTEES

3.3. PRESERVATION AND CONTROL OF REPRODUCTION OF The Urantia Book: It shall be the duty of the Trustees to retain absolute and unconditional control of all plates and other media for the printing and reproduction of The Urantia Book and any translation thereof, to make or cause to be made such additional plates and other media as shall from time to time be required to print and reproduce The Urantia Book and any translations thereof, to retain the absolute and unconditional control of the possession, custody, use, and disposition of all such plates and other media for the printing and reproduction of The Urantia Book and translation thereof, and to apply and use the Trust Estate therefor.

From the Publication Mandate (See page 4 of Ernest Moyer’s review of this and other issues):

“But the publication of the book has not been postponed to that (possibly) somewhat remote date. An early publication of the book has been provided so that it may be in hand for the training of leaders and teachers. Its presence is also required to engage the attention of persons of means who may be thus led to provide funds for translations into other languages.”

Integration

1) Online search engines do not pull up an obvious reference for this quote:

(44:1.15)  … It is literally true, “melody has power a whole world to transform.” …

But creativity and tenacity eventually led me to a possibility:

 “Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.” ―Plato

Consider how the Beatles at Shea Stadium, by setting a new bench mark for musical celebrity celebration, sparked so many aspirational efforts in the musicians who came after them. Consider the possibilities for cultural influence that were not lost on people with agendas.

2) 1956: See UBtheNEWS: Melchizedek and the Dead Sea Scrolls Report and Chromosome Count Report.
1958: See UBtheNEWS: Magnetic Sensitivity Report.
1960: See UBtheNEWS: Vikings Report.
1962—1965: See UBtheNEWS: Pangaea to Plate Tectonics Report.

1966-1975

Culture

This is the decade of the sixties revolution. Musicians and other cultural icons were known for using cannabis and LSD. The women’s liberation movement, the Vietnam war, and intense racial tensions were all part of this decade.

1966: John Lennon makes the infamous comment that the Beatles “are more popular than Jesus,” which infuriated many Christians and led to the US government keeping a close watch on John and his politics.
1966: Laws against LSD production and distribution start to be enacted.
1966: Soviets complete first soft landing on the moon in February. First attempt was in 1963. US accomplishes a soft landing in June.
1968: Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations.
1969: The epoch Woodstock music festival eventuated.
1969-1972: US claims to have landed men on the moon six times, but for some strange reason no one has been back since then, even though technological advances significantly increase the chances of a successful mission, lowers the cost, and people are highly competitive.
1970: Soviets complete a lunar sample return mission.
1970: Cannabis is listed as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, asserting it has no medical value.
1970: Legendary electric guitarist and Urantia Book reader, Jimi Hendrix dies.
1971: All in the Family is often regarded in the United States as one of the greatest television series in history. The show soon became the most watched show in the United States during the summer reruns of the first season, and afterwards ranked number one in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. It became the first television series to reach the milestone of having topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years.      
1972: Jesus movement: Explo ’72.
1972: National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse released “Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding.” The report recommended “partial prohibition” and lower penalties. Nixon and other government officials ignored the report’s findings.
1973: American Psychiatric Association  did the same in 1975.
1973: US withdrawal from Viet Nam.
1973: Cell phone technology enters the communication market.
1973: Genetic engineering begins.
1974: The US and Britain stop funding undirected AI research because of the slow progress. The “AI winter” lasts for about six years.
1974: Milliken v. Bradley. A Supreme Court, made up of Richard Nixon’s appointees, rules that schools may not be desegregated across school districts. This effectively legally segregates students of color in inner-city districts from white students in wealthier white suburban districts.
1975: American Psychological Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
1975: US government starts giving aid to Mexico to spray cannabis fields with paraquat, which does serious damage to the lungs if the cannabis smoked.

Revelation

1966: Urantia Foundation establishes formal policy for quoting passages and use of the “Urantia” and the concentric circles.
1968: Martin Myers moves into 533 Diversey.
1969: Doc Sadler heads to the mansion worlds.
1971: Clyde published the first edition of the Concordex.
1971: Martin Myers and Vern Grimsley are appointed as “agents” of the Trustees.
1972: Urantia Foundation gets into copyright suit with Jacques Weiss, the French translator.
1973: Urantia Foundation submits Confirmatory Agreement to Urantia Brotherhood, regarding use of copyright and trademarked material.
1973: Urantia Foundation sues Burton King for giving away material with quotes from The Urantia Book.
1973: A paper delivered by Clyde Bedell at a FUSLA event is cancel-cultured with respect to making the written work available.
1975: Urantia Foundation sues Robert (Bob) Burton for sending the “Government on a Neighboring Planet” paper to members of Congress. The Foundation wins in 1977.

Unity Treatise:

“But these poor indoctrinated souls, all of good heart, but still in error, continued to stifle the free expression of the revelation, and worse—they continued indoctrinating new readers in their preservation and protection of the revelation. This obtained until a new generation of readers entered the scene, when upon taking over leadership roles in these organizations from the passing “old timers,” and finding this stifling approach to be counterproductive, they rebelled, thus causing the disunity and default status that now exists.”

“However, the default of Urantia Foundation and Urantia Brotherhood was really a result of their leaders‘ lack of trust in the Revelatory Commission. They never with wholehearted commitment carried out as they should have the Revelators‘ far-seeing and wise plan for the eventual use and reason for The Urantia Book in the first place. And that Revelatory plan was for these organizations to be developed in full force to meet the “wake or peak of the spiritual growth of mankind.”” (pg. 12)

Commentary

Culture

 

Revelation

Intense power struggles and lawsuits developed during this period related to copyright/trademark issues. The Foundation had been engaging in restrictions on copyright and trademark that were consider overreaches by many. And levels of permission being required that included conference attendees needing advance permission to quote the book at conference presentations.

Suing Jacques Weiss over the French translation, for which he initially got permission to publish, especially created hard feelings and ended up making a French translation unavailable for a while.

Numerous others were threatened with Cease and Desist letters and sued for copyright and trademark infringement. Most cases were against adherents.

Integration

1) Consider that the sixties were ripe with possibilities for allowing a famous musician to spread the Urantia revelation. Imagine the thousands of study groups that would have quickly developed. Numerous famous sixties musicians had an interest in The Urantia Book, including Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, and Jaco Pastorius. The story goes that the Moody Blues wanted to play at a conference, but were rejected for cultural reasons.

2) 1975: See UBtheNEWS: Tycho’s Nova Report.

3) A power struggle developed between Clyde Bedell—the world’s greatest salesman—and the Foundation, regarding distribution of his Concordex and the failure of the Foundation to produce an Index, consistent with their own declarations to do so since publication. During this decade, Clyde and the Foundation struggled over issues related to copyright and marketing the Concordex through the Foundation/Brotherhood. Introductory material for the Concordex of a political nature, which got increasingly edited out with each edition, was an issue. Generally, Clyde was concerned about the communist threat, especially from China. He perceived the sixties movement as ungrounded and undercivilized and was concerned about mixing it with the Urantia revelation.

Excerpts from Clyde Bedell’s July 1, 1973 talk at a FUSLA event that received backlash. (emphasis in the original):

... Our “universe” is changing front today, now. You and I are living through a crucial early stage of change—a preliminary to one of the greatest changes of front this planet has ever known. The denouement is ahead. After which, a new culture’s painful beginnings will grow out of what is left of our old culture. We should understand its scale and import, and why a country so great as this has been brought to such a plight in a few decades. We need to be briefed. …

This … is a very personal and urgent cry! Hopeful of being heard above the music of your merry-go-round, which I’m sure has your rapt attention, almost full time daily. Hopeful that you will soften the music, slow down the tempo, and heed my tugging on your coattails.

You must sense that our county’s problems are growing steadily worse. The situation and what’s behind it are an education.

I call out to you because you may have the openness of mind and heart to reappraise your priorities. You need to know that our culture has been deprived of something vastly important; who is guilty; and how it was done. It’s a long shattering story. It will be easier for you to reject or side-step the truth I gradually unfold to you, than to face and embrace it. Most people take the easy course and turn the other way. That’s why we have our problems.

Stop and look at our society from a cosmic peep hole somewhere outside. …

Don’t look at the quiet majority of the people down the side streets and in the suburbs and ordinary neighborhoods, hopefully clothing and feeding their kids, paying their bills, trying to live normal lives in a world they are progressively learning is not normal.

It takes only 20 or 30 steers in a herd of 5,000 to panic the lot. In a city of 250,000, if 5,000 are living outside the law—and mug and rape and burglarize and rob and set fires and a few more do so each week—how many of the remaining 240,000 plus can freely walk down the streets, use parks, and live normal lives. That the majority of people are decent doesn’t solve the problem.

Look at the dominant features of the society in which you work … Look at the big corporations, the business, the politicians, the schools, the churches, and charitable organizations, the legislatures, the mass media, the professors, the judiciary. They are the ones who give the tempo, the coloration, direction, complexion to our culture. The majority of the people, God pity them in this society, can only go along reluctantly and protestingly, perhaps. But no longer can they call the tunes. Though they are compelled to pay the pipers. …

In front of me was an article about a 15-year old Mexican boy, stabbed to death by Los Angeles hoodlums on his school ground. A high school boy, a football player, was killed by young bums because he refused to give to them his new coat. A few doors away, learned doctors were writing the articles on protective tariffs and labor unions, while their merry-go-rounds never faltered, and drowned out the anguished cries of mothers, who surely should have expected better of life than this.

… America today is a merry-go-round society—is dominated by a frenetic collection of madly whirling, self-centered merry-go-rounds, operating with no (or minimal) concern for their effect on the country as a whole.

Not long ago, a year ago tomorrow, as a matter of fact, a little girl named Joyce Anne Huff was playing in her front yard a few miles from here. Her mother glanced at her frequently from the kitchen window a few feet away. Suddenly a shotgun roared from a passing Chevrolet and 42 lead pellets were buried in the soft little body. Three youths were arrested for what turned out to be a “joy killing.” The prime suspect had already an arrest record for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, arson, robbery, and narcotics charges. Our “sociological jurisprudence” that favors criminals over the public is a virus that has spread from a small secretly functioning poison drug company, “Fabian Socialism and Social Sciences Proprietary,” as many other of our long standard social problems and poisons have. It’s early beginnings were in 1884 in England, in New York in the U.S., in 1905.

[T]he world you [used to know] doesn’t exist. It’s gone. The sick arsonists, rapist, murders around us, were raised in a TV-drug-alcohol culture were criminals go free and the huge profits of drug-dispensing manufacturers bear no relationship whatever to the drugs required by our civilization. And in the cities, where the drugs are made, well-meaning but babes-in-the-woods gentleman write books in defense of free enterprise, while their merry-go-rounds drown out the the moanings and groanings in the dark.

A doctor in Los Angeles who wrote thousands of illegal prescriptions for drugs (for a consideration) has his license lifted. Good? Well, it’s the third lift and for only 5 years. Meanwhile he can have a 5-year vacation on profits earned by addicting kids. Hear the music?

“Drink to the judge, the addle-headed judge
In his judicial robe
He’ll be as gentle as can be.
He is no xenophobe.”

From Wikipedia:

The Fabian Society is a British socialist organization whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

Here is Clyde Bedell’s paper, plus post-event reflective introduction on the controversy. Audio file of the July 1, 1973 presentation.
Here is an example of the cancel culture mentality that continues to be influential today.

 

4) Consider that the sixties era involved an anticipated spiritual awakening (related to teachings and other communications in Urantia Book culture about the celestial leadership of our planet) changing over from the Seraphim of the Churches to the Seraphim of Progress. Consider that the Urantia movement’s leadership was culturally ill-disposed to take advantage of this evolutionary development. Consider that even though many people still active in the community today got “turned on” to The Urantia Book anyway, the movement failed to capitalize on this opportunity to a large degree because of fears, loyalties, bigotries, legitimate concerns, inexperience, seasoned but untimely wisdom, short term vs. long term political crosscurrents, etc.

Consider the lost opportunity costs associated with the Foundation’s tendency to become legalistic with believers, to fail to produce an index and to work effectively with the person who did, who happened also to be the world’s best salesman (imperfect as he was).

1976—1985

Culture

Computer technology started to become more accessible during the latter half of this decade.

1976: Third Edition of The Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) released; estimated 1,000,000 AA members.
1976: Personal computer technology enters the market.
1976—1981: Starting with Rastaman Vibration, Bob Marley starts to become a highly celebrated race unifying musician, but dies at age 36 from cancer.
1977: Urantia Book reader, Elvis Presley dies.
1977: Jaslovske Bohunice, Czechoslovakia nuclear power plant suffers a Level 4 problem.
1978: A study indicates that 14% of cannabis in the US is contaminated with paraquat. A lawsuit initiated by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ends funding to Mexico for paraquat. Government officials exposed for growing cannabis in the Chattahooche Forest led to retaliatory paraquat usage in the US by the Reagan administration that continued until the 1990’s.
1979—1981: Bob Dylan converts to Christianity with Slow Train Coming.
1979: Three Mile Island (PA), United States nuclear power plant suffers a Level 5 problem.    
1979: The Patent Office rejects Joseph Newman’s application for his energy device, which may relate to the “undiscovered” forces.
1980+: “Expert systems” reinvigorate AI research. 
1980: Saint Laurent des Eaux, France nuclear power plant suffers a Level 4 problem.   
1980: US population demographics: Non Hispanic White 79.6%. Black 11.7%. Hispanic 6.4%. Asian .5%. Native .6%.
1980: John Lennon, shortly before being murdered, recorded “Serve Yourself,” a scathing secular and ironically evangelistic rebuttal of Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” and of religious evangelism, generally.
1981: Mobile telephone technology enters the market.
1982: Ebony and Irory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
1982: Nuclear Waste Policy Act establishes federal mandate to manage nuclear waste storage issue.
1992: FDA approves the first consumer GMO product developed through genetic engineering: human insulin to treat diabetes.
1985: We Are The World: Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie, Quincy Jones.

Revelation

1976+: A Course In Miracles gets published, which significantly undermines traction that The Urantia Book was getting through Unity Churches and also had the effect of misdirecting some of the Urantia Book readership.
1978: Urantia Foundation sues Arnold Zakow and Don Pettrie for copyright infringement. 
1979: John Hay starts the Boulder School for Students of The Urantia Book.
1980: Urantia Foundation sues First Urantia Society of Houston over Confirmatory Agreement.  
1981: I find The Urantia Book, which inspires me to choose faith and believe in its legitimacy.
1982: Christy heads to the mansion worlds.
1983: Vern Grimsley (and David Kantor) claim to have gotten WWIII messages from midwayers. This led to a lot of cultural division, including the dismissal of a trustee. Numerous people in the community took relatively extreme measures in preparation. The social disruption ended up sucking the life out of the Boulder School, which had been gaining a lot of momentum, causing numerous people to move permanently to that area.
1983: Foundation pursues copyright/trademark infringement issues with the Center for Urantia Book Synergy and a planned conference. Clyde’s son, Barrie, was involved with this group.
1985: Clyde Bedell dies.

(52:3.11)  During the closing centuries of the post-Adamic age there develops new interest in art, music, and literature, and this world-wide awakening is the signal for the appearance of a Magisterial Son. The crowning development of this era is the universal interest in intellectual realities, true philosophy. Religion becomes less nationalistic, becomes more and more a planetary affair. New revelations of truth characterize these ages, and the Most Highs of the constellations begin to rule in the affairs of men. Truth is revealed up to the administration of the constellations.

(44:1.13)  Tuneful syncopation represents a transition from the musical monotony of primitive man to the expressionful harmony and meaningful melodies of your later-day musicians. These earlier types of rhythm stimulate the reaction of the music-loving sense without entailing the exertion of the higher intellectual powers of harmony appreciation and thus more generally appeal to immature or spiritually indolent individuals.

(44:1.15)  While you have assembled some beautiful melodies on Urantia, you have not progressed musically nearly so far as many of your neighboring planets in Satania. If Adam and Eve had only survived, then would you have had music in reality; but the gift of harmony, so large in their natures, has been so diluted by strains of unmusical tendencies that only once in a thousand mortal lives is there any great appreciation of harmonics. But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, “melody has power a whole world to transform.” Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona.

(90:2.9) Ever and anon, true prophets and teachers arose to denounce and expose shamanism. Even the vanishing red man had such a prophet within the past hundred years, the Shawnee Tenskwatawa, who predicted the eclipse of the sun in 1806 and denounced the vices of the white man. Many true teachers have appeared among the various tribes and races all through the long ages of evolutionary history. And they will ever continue to appear to challenge the shamans or priests of any age who oppose general education and attempt to thwart scientific progress.

(47:3.5)  From the Temple of New Life there extend seven radial wings, the resurrection halls of the mortal races. Each of these structures is devoted to the assembly of one of the seven races of time. There are one hundred thousand personal resurrection chambers in each of these seven wings terminating in the circular class assembly halls, which serve as the awakening chambers for as many as one million individuals. These halls are surrounded by the personality assembly chambers of the blended races of the normal post-Adamic worlds. Regardless of the technique which may be employed on the individual worlds of time in connection with special or dispensational resurrections, the real and conscious reassembly of actual and complete personality takes place in the resurrection halls of mansonia number one. Throughout all eternity you will recall the profound memory impressions of your first witnessing of these resurrection mornings.

(48:6.22)  2. Racial Interpreters. All races of mortal beings are not alike. True, there is a planetary pattern running through the physical, mental, and spiritual natures and tendencies of the various races of a given world; but there are also distinct racial types, and very definite social tendencies characterize the offspring of these different basic types of human beings. On the worlds of time the seraphic racial interpreters further the efforts of the race commissioners to harmonize the varied viewpoints of the races, and they continue to function on the mansion worlds, where these same differences tend to persist in a measure. On a confused planet, such as Urantia, these brilliant beings have hardly had a fair opportunity to function, but they are the skillful sociologists and the wise ethnic advisers of the first heaven.

Commentary

Culture

Dylan won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for the song “Gotta Serve Somebody”. His second Christian album, Saved (1980), received mixed reviews, described by Michael Gray as “the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, Slow Train Coming II and inferior”. His third Christian album was Shot of Love in 1981. When touring in late 1979 and early 1980, Dylan would not play his older, secular works, and he delivered declarations of his faith from the stage, such as:

“Years ago they … said I was a prophet. I used to say, “No, I’m not a prophet,” they say “Yes you are. You’re a prophet.” I said, “No. It’s not me.” They used to say, “You sure are a prophet.” They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, “Bob Dylan’s no prophet.” They just can’t handle it.”

Dylan’s Christianity was unpopular with some fans and musicians. John Lennon, shortly before being murdered, recorded “Serve Yourself” in response to Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”. By 1981, Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times that “neither age (he’s now 40) nor his much-publicized conversion to born-again Christianity has altered his essentially iconoclastic temperament”.

John Lennon, 1980:

“Anybody who wants to hear Dylan just because of who he is isn’t gonna understand what Dylan is saying now or then. They’re just following some kind of image. They’re the sheep anyway. Still, the whole religion business does suffer from the ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ bit. There’s too much talk about soldiers and marching and converting. I’m not pushing Buddhism, because I’m no more a Buddhist than I am a Christian, but there’s one thing I admire about the religion: there is no proselytizing…

“You have to think in terms of process. Relying on your own spirit is healthy. If Dylan is into Jesus because of needing to belong, whatever, perhaps the next step will be to see the good of the experience as well as the other side.”

“Serve Yourself” lyrics are a rejection of faith in God as well as religions and includes obscene language repeatedly. The song was not released until 1998.

Substantial evidence indicates that the person arrested for Lennon’s murder was a patsy because medical professionals, involved with caring for him after the shooting, report that he was shot four times at close range from the front and in the chest.

Revelation

Integration

Bob Marley’s use of cannabis as a religious sacrament plays into the liberation culture of the sixties, helping the music and allowing it to have its racially unifying impact. Some Marley historians speculate about possible CIA involvement in giving him the cancer, which eventually killed him. See Topical Study: Bob Marley—the Prophesied Musician-Prophet.

Regarding Joseph Newman as a science-prophet, see Cross-reference study: Undiscovered.

Consider how computer technology, which soon led to being able to do word searches of The Urantia Book, would transform the process of studying the text and creating study aids. Note that Clyde’s time was up right when this was getting started, which in large measure obsoleted decades of dedication to the Concordex.

1986—1995

Culture

1986: Chernobyl, Ukraine (Russia) nuclear power plant suffers a Level 7 problem. 
1987: 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act amended to specify Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the (only) place to store nuclear waste. Nevada has fought this and no facility has ever been created.
1987: The psychoactive LSD band of the sixties reaches its socially active peak with “Touch Of Grey.” First performed as an encore on September 15, 1982,it was finally released on In the Dark in 1987. The song got into the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 9, and reached number 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, the only song by the band ever to do so on both charts. The lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, who had an interest in The Urantia Book, became a “guitar God.”
1987: The world’s greatest electric bass guitarist and Urantia Book reader, Jaco Pastorius dies.
1989+: World Wide Web introduction. Begins a new type of information competition and warfare. Text messaging starts in 1992.
1990: World renowned electric blues guitarist and Urantia Book reader, Stevie Ray Vaughan dies.
1990—1993: Apartheid ends.
1993: Tomsk, Russia nuclear power plant suffers a Level 4 problem.
1993: The process of Polymerase Chain Reaction was introduced by (UB reader) Kary Mullis. This technique produces multiple copies of a segment of DNA in just a short period of time.
1994: Proposition 187 passes in California, making it illegal for children of undocumented immigrants to attend public school. Federal courts hold Proposition 187 unconstitutional, but anti-immigrant feeling spreads across the country.
1994: Internet radio broadcasting begins.
1994: The first GMO produce created through genetic engineering—a GMO tomato—becomes available for sale.
1994: Another Woodstock Festival is held on the 25th anniversary.
1995: Urantia Book reader and legendary Grateful Dead guitarist, Jerry Garcia dies.

Revelation

1988: Urantia Foundation sues Center for Urantia Book Synergy. Settles out of court.
1988: Scientific Symposium I.   
1988: Canadian reader, Joe Pope, declares himself the new John the Baptist and starts Elijah Ministry and predicts the new age will come in 1997.  
1988: Boulder School closes.
1989+: The symbiotic relationship between Urantia Foundation and Urantia Brotherhood ends—the split. This leads to the Brotherhood being renamed the Fellowship, loosely speaking, and the formation of what eventually would be called Urantia Association International (“UAI”).
1989+: Tony Delevin, aka Gabriel of Urantia and Gabriel of Sedona, practices channeling (but calls he something else), claims he and his children to be various reincarnated beings, and starts a personality cult that springboards off The Urantia Book.
1989+: A new subculture develops called the Teaching Mission. They encourage a channeling practice, in the broad sense, and refute that it should be so labelled. Less than ten people become known as “Receivers.” In general, study group culture suffered from the evangelistic energy that was predictably associated the extraordinary claim of getting special messages from the spirit world. Over 40,000 pages of transcriptions were made from the recorded sessions. Teaching Mission conferences are held.
1990+: Conference attendance declines for decades from a peak of around 1100 in the 1980’s.
1991: Urantia Foundation initiates legal action against Kristen Maaherra for creating and giving away an electronic index to The Urantia Book.
1991: Scientific Symposium II.
1992: Martin Myers dismissed from being a Urantia Foundation trustee.
1994: Scientific Symposium III.
1994: Chris Hansen independently publishes Part IV of The Urantia Book under the title, “God’s Bible, An Epochal Revelation Sponsored by God’s Angels — Part IV, Papers 120-196, The Life and Teachings of Jesus”.
1995: Martin Gardner published Urantia: the Great Cult Mystery.
1995: Urantia Foundation’s claim to a copyright in The Urantia Book ruled invalid in Summary Judgment by United States Senior District Judge in Arizona – copyright placed in public domain. Urantia Foundation files appeal.
1995: Urantia Foundation initiates lawsuit against Kristen Maaherra’s husband, Eric Schaveland, for using “urantia” as part of a URL (universal resource locator) for his website.

Commentary

Culture

 

Revelation

Integration

1) Jaco Pastorius’ interest in The Urantia Book is recorded into music history with what is probably his most famous piece—Havona.  From Wikipedia:

“In 1982, Pastorius toured with Word of Mouth as a 21-piece big band. While in Japan, to the alarm of his band members, he shaved his head, painted his face black, and threw his bass guitar into Hiroshima Bay. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in late 1982 after the tour. Pastorius had shown signs of bipolar disorder before his diagnosis, but these signs were dismissed as eccentricities, character flaws, and by Pastorius himself as a normal part of his freewheeling personality.

“On September 11, 1987, Pastorius sneaked onstage at a Santana concert at the Sunrise Musical Theater in Sunrise, Florida. After being ejected from the premises, he made his way to the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors.  After reportedly kicking in a glass door, having been refused entrance to the club, he became involved in a violent confrontation with a club employee who was a martial arts expert. Pastorius was hospitalized for multiple facial fractures and injuries to his right eye and left arm, and fell into a coma.  There were encouraging signs that he would come out of the coma and recover, but they soon faded. A brain hemorrhage a few days later led to brain death.”

“Bass Player magazine gave him second place on a list of the one hundred greatest bass players of all time, behind James Jamerson.

Carlos Santana also has an interest in The Urantia Book, even referencing the section on Law, Liberty, and Sovereignty on Facebook in 2011.

2) 1989: See UBtheNEWS: Inner Ionosphere Report.
1989: See UBtheNEWS: Garden of Eden Report.

1996—2005

Culture

1996: California passes Proposition 209, which outlaws affirmative action in public employment, public contracting and public education.
1996: California passes Proposition 215, the first medical marijuana legislation in the US.
1996: “Dolly” becomes the first cloned sheep, which is not revealed to the public until 1997.
1997: A computer, “Deep Blue,” beats a world champion chess player for the first time.
1998: Google launches its search engine technology.
1999: Tokaimura, Japan nuclear power plant has a Level 4 problem.
2000: US population demographics: Non Hispanic White 69.1%. Black 12.3%. Hispanic 12.5%. Asian 3.8%. Native .9%.
2001: Fourth Edition of The Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) released; estimated 2,000,000 or more members in 100,800 groups meeting in approximately 150 countries around the world.
2001: The world’s first legal gay marriage ceremony took place in the Netherlands.
2002: American Idol.
2004: Facebook is launched.
2005: YouTube is launched.
2004, 2006: Robert Sarmast’s Atlantis/Eden project raises sufficient funds from Urantia Book readers, and then the History Channel, to launch two exploratory expeditions between Cyprus and Syria.

Revelation

1997: Court of Appeals reverses the decision of the District Court, restoring copyright to Urantia Foundation. Urantia Foundation’s victory causes the Fellowship to cease its activities associated with publishing and distributing the revelation.
1998: Squarecircles.com is launched by Saskia Raevouri and Matthew Block.  
2001: Loss of a jury-decided copyright lawsuit against Harry McMullan (Asoka Foundation) puts The Urantia Book in the public domain. (Your editor, who has a law degree, sat through the entire trial and verdict.)
2001+: Truthbook.com, a Mo Siegel project, is launched.
2004: Phil Calabrese does his “Coming Scientific Validation of The Urantia Book” presentation at the Fellowship’s IC04 conference, which along with Robert Sarmast’s work on the Atlantis/Eden project, helped inspire the UBtheNEWS proj

Commentary

Culture

 

Revelation

 

Integration

1998: See UBtheNEWS: Early Migration to the Americas.
2001+: See UBtheNEWS: Early Migration to Britain Report.
2004: See UBtheNEWS: Creating Fire Report.

2006—2015

Culture

Facebook develops during this period in the largest social media platform.
2006: Fleurus, Belgium nuclear plants suffers Level 4 problem.
2011: Fukushima, Japan nuclear plant suffers Level 7 damage from a tsunami.
2012: ACLU of Missouri files federal lawsuit against the City of Cape Girardeau for disallowing them to place handbills on cars.
2013:  The AMA officially recognized obesity as a disease in an attempt to change how the medical community approaches the issue.
2015: US Supreme Court rules: “The Court, in this decision, holds same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States.”
2015: The AMA declared there is no medically valid reason to exclude transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. The Human Rights Campaign lauded the decision.

Revelation

2006: International copyright for English version expires.
2007+: UB revival: UBtheNEWS, Pato Banton, Alison Zopel are on the road, promoting The Urantia Book.

Commentary

Culture

The nuclear disaster at Fukushima is ongoing. Radioactive waste water is being released into the ocean.

Revelation

 

Integration

2006: See UBtheNEWS: Adam and Eve Report and Sierra Mountains Report.
2008: See UBtheNEWS: Early Migration to China Report.
2009: See UBtheNEWS: Horsing Around Report.

2016—present

Culture

2016: In Havana, Cuba on Feb. 12, for the first time since the Great Schism 1054, a meeting was held between the Christian leaders of the Greek East and the Latin West traditions met—Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill.
2017: First eclipse of Bald Knob Cross of Peace, which intrigues Christians about the relationship to Isaiah 66:22-23. Ten weeks later the first Q post occurs.
2017: President Trump recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
2019: A plandemic is initiated to undermine the economic and political successes of the Trump administration, which occurred even though the president was under constant attack by political enemies aligned with historic beltway politics.
2020: US population demographics: Non Hispanic White 57.8%. Black 12.4%. Hispanic 18.7%. Asian 6.2%. Native .1.1%.
2020: Alcoholics Anonymous estimated its worldwide membership to be over two million with 75% of those in the U.S. and Canada. 
2020: The second half of Tribulation gets worse with the stolen election that makes Biden the resident of the White House.
2021: The AMA published a plan to dismantle “structural racism” which would encourage “explicit conversations about power, racism, gender and class oppression, forms of discrimination and exclusion”, based on critical race theory and the antiracism movement.
2022: In the wake of a pivotal 2019 vote, the United Methodist Church splits with the establishment of the Global Methodist Church.

Revelation

2016: Unity Treatise is distributed by Nicholas Scalzo, who says it comes from an anonymous source. It declares the three main organizations to be in default and specifies what they must do by August 21, 2017 to correct the problem.

Unity Treatise:

“It has always been the intent of Michael for the First Epochal Revelation, with the visible Prince‘s staff to be in communication not only with the Prince and the Planetary Government, but also to be visible and communicative with men and women. And this visibility and this direct communication were to remain between God and man in an unbroken chain for millennia. Humankind was never intended to be alone—but this type of visible and direct communication was halted upon rebellion to protect other planets and conserve the presence of God on all inhabited worlds.

“It has always been the intent of Michael for the Second Epochal Revelation, with the visible Material Son and Daughter to be not only in communication with the Planetary Prince, the Prince‘s staff and the Planetary Government, but also visible and communicative with men and women, and again to continue an unbroken communication link between God and humankind until the planet reaches Light and Life.

“Likewise, it has been the intent of Michael for the Fifth Epochal Revelation, with the visible Contact Commissioners and their successors to be in continuous communication with the Revelatory Commission and by them to the Planetary Government, the Most Highs, Gabriel, even to Michael. It was intended that through these Contact personalities, the leaders of the Urantia movement would continue to have a continuous connection between God and the Revelators through this type of communication. The Urantia revelation was always intended to be in communication with and have continuous and direct guidance by the Revelators.

“To this end, the Revelators have been looking for another loyal and trustworthy contact group to continue this dialogue after the last Contact Commissioner “graduated.” But with the defaults and unsanctioned social institutions, many members of which believe such things as direct communication impossible, the Revelators, for many reasons, dare not contact any one of those three organizations from within.

“It has been attempted a few times before, but the efforts proved unsuccessful, for it takes the right group of men and women. The Revelators are hoping that UF, TUBF and UAI by following their original mandates, by first accepting the Judgment/Solution of the Conciliating Commission, and by taking the immediate steps toward unity as listed below, will make possible this communication with them again in the future.” (pg. 22)

2016: UBannotated is implemented as an expansion of the UBtheNEWS project.

Commentary

Culture

From Wikipedia:

“The Joint Declaration of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, also known as the Havana Declaration, was issued following the first meeting in February 2016 between Pope Francis, who, as the Bishop of Rome, is the pontiff of the Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches. This was the first time leaders of the Catholic Church and the Moscow Patriarchate had met. While the meeting was also seen as a symbolic moment in the history of relations between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches as a community, which had split in the Great Schism of 1054, centuries before the Moscow Patriarchate was constituted, it was not expected to lead to any immediate rapprochement between them.”

Revelation

From the Unity Treatise:

“The Revelators would prefer to have Urantians in Unity rather than continue in organizational factions that show to the world your spiritual disunity, consequently reflecting this upon the teachings of The Urantia Book. These factions, if continued, will delay the purpose of The Urantia Book, and will quickly disqualify these three organizations from ever having the support of the Revelators to obtain the purpose and goals they set, and if so, this human responsibility will be handed to the watch care of others who prove trustworthy.

“The proverbial clock is ticking!” (pg. 22)

Integration