Looking decidedly uncomfortable in the habiliments of their stature as last judgment defendants, George Bush and Dick Cheney stand before the Eternal Judge of the Ages. (Click)

MANSONIA ONE — With eyes averted and lips cemented together as if to prevent himself from blurting out the truth, while his former vice-president grimaced and snarled in the face of his predicament, George “W” Bush and Richard “Dick” Cheney were literally  “Meeting their Maker.”  And when asked by their divine judge to characterize their joint stewardship over the affairs of earth, (Urantia), neither man uttered a sound, but instead jerked their thumbs up in a gesture meant to signify “success.”

The simultaneous gesture by the two men also betrayed a previous rehearsal;  Dick Cheney had instructed the Bush quisling to follow his lead and to “keep [his] fucking mouth shut.”

Both men are having difficulty understanding they are facing a final reckoning of their earthly careers, which involves the possible cessation of their existence as personal beings.  The defendant counselors have determined the pair are not currently fit to continue the hearing and should be remanded back to psychotherapy for further evaluation and treatment.

Ascendant Urantians have shown great interest in the outcome of their eternal dispositions. Both men, as well as several of their appointed colleagues, are facing responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings during horrendous wars prosecuted under their stewardship of the United States government, a powerful but declining nation of twentieth century Urantia.

Observers of this saga of pre-light and life Urantia will recall the troubled planet is the “sentimental shrine of all Nebadon,” having served as the bestowal world for the Son of God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, whom first century Urantians barbarically nailed to a wooden cross, the world subsequently becoming known as “The world of the cross.”

Aren’t you glad we’re not so hairy anymore?

It’s dark. Cold.  There’s no shelter.  There’s no food.  Water is scarce.  To make matters worse, you’re barely human.  You’re just a few dozen generations removed from the first two human beings, born of primates,  the last vital link in the evolution of man.

The good news is, you have perfect human thumbs;  perfect human feet.  You are fully grown at 12 years of age;  and if you’re real real careful, you could even live to the ripe old age of seventy-five.  The bad news is, that will never happen.

“You” are the successful culmination of the attempts to evolve contactable mind on this world,  Urantia;  and you are just beginning your Urantian sojourn.

“You” are a bundle of primal mental urges;  and these urges increasingly become the familiar core of what it means to be a self-conscious and sentient human being.  It doesn’t matter that you— the mind reading this today— are many thousands of generations sequentially following after the first two human beings, beautiful little monkeys with minds fully capable of hearing the thought provoking voice of the rudiments of mind;  but just like them, you still have to solve the puzzle of your existence on your own.

Still. it is decidedly helpful to understand a few important aspects of why your mind works (or not) the way it does:

1. The spirit of intuition — quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.

2. The spirit of understanding — the impulse of co-ordination, the spontaneous and apparently automatic association of ideas. This is the gift of the co-ordination of acquired knowledge, the phenomenon of quick reasoning, rapid judgment, and prompt decision.

3. The spirit of courage — the fidelity endowment — in personal beings, the basis of character acquirement and the intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent and conscientious self-direction.

4. The spirit of knowledge — the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.

5. The spirit of counsel — the social urge, the endowment of species co-operation; the ability of will creatures to harmonize with their fellows; the origin of the gregarious instinct among the more lowly creatures.

6. The spirit of worship — the religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship forever distinguishes the animal of its association from the soulless creatures of mind endowment. Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascensioncandidacy.

7. The spirit of wisdom — the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.

So. The next time you find yourself taking your intuition for granted, or ignoring the facility of mind that allowed you to quickly string together a creative hypothesis, or experience a burst of raw courage in the face of some asinine political sophistry, or marvel at the beauty of cohesive scientific unity that runs through all of  Planet Earth, or find yourself blissfully enjoying the company of good friends, or you are spontaneously overcome by a feeling of awe at the power of a sunrise, or you simply realize the wonder of the hope of the mere possibility of living forever in a progressive and divine universe— remember there is a conspiracy of spiritual forces at work in your mind, and if you can learn to pay attention to them they will never let you down.

ZAPPADAN EXCLUSIVE:

FIRST FRANK ZAPPA POST-RESURRECTION * * *INTERVIEW* * *

Cover for Zappa’s latest collection of work in the next world.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Urantian Sojourn is thrilled to be able to bring you Frank Zappa’s very first post-resurrection interview!  (Permission for this extraordinary event was granted after the start of this year’s Zappadan, but better late than never, feh!)  Also.
We can’t really say much about how we obtained a copy of the interview— other than it was on the up ‘n up.  So, enjoy this f’n amazing peek into Frank Zappa’s post-resurrection existence.  —ED.

ZAPPA:  RESURRECTED

Frank Vincent Zappa, Urantian musician, was resurrected on the third period following his physical death on December 4, 1993.  He was as surprised as any resurrectee that comes through here, pretty much a fucked-up agnostic who thought he was just another burnt weenie.  But Frank is quick, clever, and smart, and got with the program from day one.  I (a temporary personal guide assigned to Frank Zappa) interviewed him at his residence on Mansonia One, on the occasion of the celebration of his 69th (earth years) birthday.

US: Frank— first things first, happy birthday!

FZ: Hey— thank you very much.

US: So, why don’t we start at your beginning here… how was your resurrection?

FZ: Well… In a couple words, fucking unbelievable!  Really. Ya know, one second I was dying, and the next “second” I’m kinda walking through the proverbial “green pastures,” ya know, then I’m waking up, surrounded by the seraphim and the cherubim of the resurrection, and it was so smooth and stunning, I… just, well, you know— swooned.

US: Yeah.  So you’re here what— wow— goin’ on sixteen Urantia years already. That’s only five Mansonia years and some change, but you seem to be getting through Philo Rehab [philosophical re-orientation] pretty well.

FZ: Yeah, yeah, amazing how time goes here, with the 71 hour days and the 100 day years. There’s that transcending time thing goin’ on, too.  They do throw a lot at you here, as you know, and they’re so matter of fact about it all, they told me music had me pretty fucked up,  surprise, so I’m glad to finally be getting all the attention I deserve, ha. ha. ha.

US: Speaking of attention.  I heard that a “Catholic Girl” Contingent that met with you—  a “dozen” of them— was pretty upset that you wrote another song about them.

FZ: That’s right. Yeahhh… that was a few years ago. Those particular girls and boys were still clinging to their earth-religion,  just like the Obama man said, the president-elect, back in America?

US: Yeah, great things are happening there, I understand—  I should mention that resurrectors like you, begin up here exactly where you left off down there…

FZ: …Yeah… no shit.

US: So how did it go with them?

FZ: …I gave’m a little sample of the chorus action. . . like:
(sings and dances)

“Catholic Girls
They’re still on a guilt trip
Catholic Girls
They still got teh soft lips
Catholic Girls
They been resurrected
Catholic Girls
But they still feel rejected

US: Ha!

FZ: So. . .  Surprisingly though, we parted somewhat amicably.  I think.

US: And it’s on your first release up here, “Resurrection Swoon.” Which I understand the title track was a take-off of your earlier earth tune, “Concentration Moon.”

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Our world— Urantia— has become known among other neighboring inhabited planets as the “World of the Cross.”

For newbies to this blog who’ve never heard of The Urantia Book, just the caption on the photo above holds the potential to make their head explode.  “. . .neighboring inhabited planets”??  Uh huhhh.

But. Yeah.  If all you’ve ever thought of calling the planet you walk around on is “earth,” then your planetary provincialism rules you pretty much unrecognized.  That is, even though you may have been a Star Trek fan back in the day, enjoy science fiction, and maybe you have even enjoyed the thirteen episodes of Carl Sagan’s 1980 groundbreaking series, “Cosmos,“  for whatever reasons, you’ve never seriously examined the notion that a universe hierarchy of other inhabited worlds— many of whom are certainly far older and more advanced than ours— may know of our world through means most of us have not even imagined.

The Cosmos programs were to many “earth dwellers” or “Urantians” around the world a wonderful introduction to the very concept of cosmology;  a comprehensive approach to a personal understanding of reality existence, which includes among all other things, a relative comprehension of the origin, purpose, and destiny of the Universe, and of consciousness and the nature of reality existence.

But.  I’m too far afield already. The notion that someone else named our world “Urantia” and that the surrounding universe knows we put the Son of God on a cross, and our world has subsequently become known to them as “The World of the Cross,” are bits of information filtered out of a little known revelatory instruction to our world in cosmology. 

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“We leave you now to your own devices.  Choose your leaders wisely.  For if you continue to disregard the dangers of this age by choosing base and ignorant rulers, you may soon find yourselves on the receiving end of interstellar justice, and I can assure you— I’m talkin’ total annihilation, homies.”

It was fifty-seven years ago this past month that “The Day the Earth Stood Still” rocked America.  We have mused here about Obama selecting Gort for his vice-president, which reflects a longing for the kind of robot-like prime directive and platinum-coated will that would simplify global relations with friend and foe alike;  in other words:  step out of line and Gort will kick your asses into another dimension.

In an Obama administration, Gort’s actions would speak
many times louder than his words ever could.

The movie chronicles fifty-ish America’s harsh treatment of a representative of our alien galactic overlords, (not the first time that’s happened…) come to warn us that if we continue phucking around with nuclear weapons, they will be turning our planet into low quality interstellar dust. Sort of a prophylactic pest removal plan to keep us from harming any of the peace-loving worlds full of D. F. Hippies that have long since given up killing each other over multifarious acts of stupidity.

This clip from the original film still makes me glad Klaatu didn’t land on the Bush White House lawn.

Keanu as Klaatu?? This doesn’t bode well for planet earth.

It wasn’t hard for many ’50s dullards to grok the reasoning behind Klaatu’s ruthless act of service, and the film reverberated through a country already feverish about alien invasions, thanks to the Roswell incident.  But it was still just science fiction. No one could presume to be the boss of us, especially those dirty red devils from the U.S.S.R.

Our global bed-wetting neuroses aside for the moment, we still haven’t learned that nationalism is not a desirable philosophy, but a potentially fatal disease. We cannot prevent other nations from going to war as long as they— like the US— remain infected with the delusional virus of national sovereignty. Besides, America can no longer afford to act like an international police force; we’re flat-assed broke.  Here’s the reality check.

The Urantia Book:

As the number of truly sovereign nations (great powers) decreases, so do both opportunity and need for mankind government increase. When there are only a few really sovereign (great) powers, either they must embark on the life and death struggle for national (imperial) supremacy, or else, by voluntary surrender of certain prerogatives of sovereignty, they must create the essential nucleus of supernational power which will serve as the beginning of the real sovereignty of all mankind.

This “sovereignty of all mankind” they speak of is the ultimate goal of planetary governments, but our current geopolitical menagerie is apparently not capable of the requisite foresight and vision needed for such wise cooperation.  Until then, and beyond, it is the “Most Highs” who will be calling the shots in the “kingdoms of men.”

The who? you say?

The Most Highs.

The “Most Highs” rule;  and they rule in a way that is designed to “foster the greatest good to the greatest number of all men and for the greatest length of time.”

Grok. this.

The spiritual sovereignty of God overrides all intervening and intermediate spiritual loyalties. Someday civil rulers will learn that the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.  This rule of the Most Highs in the kingdoms of men is not for the especial benefit of any especially favored group of mortals. There is no such thing as a “chosen people.” The rule of the Most Highs, the overcontrollers of political evolution, is a rule designed to foster the greatest good to the greatest number of all men and for the greatest length of time.

Overcontrollers of political evolution.  Hmm.
Witness the meteoric rise of a brilliant bi-racial black man to the most powerful political office on the planet. Hmm.

A Most High observer is empowered, at his discretion, to seize the planetary government in times of grave planetary crises, and it is of record that this has happened thirty-three times in the history of Urantia. At such times the Most High observer functions as the Most High regent, exercising unquestioned authority over all ministers and administrators resident on the planet…

So how does he actually roll?

The angels of nation life, the “angels of the trumpets,” are the directors of the political performances of Urantia national life.  It is particularly through the ministry of this seraphic division that “the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.”

So much to learn, so little time to learn it.
Maybe The Obama Years are a good time to start.

Somebody please explain what this photo is. If not a Photoshop gag, then what, exactly? Apparently taken during last week’s debate, posted at HuffPo .

If genuine, file it in the Encyclopedia Urantica, under the entry self-parody.

IN THE PAST, a fierce war would bring about social changes and facilitate the adoption of new ideas, such as would not have occurred naturally in ten thousand years. But the terrible price paid for these certain advantages was that society was temporarily thrown back into savagery; civilized reason had to abdicate. War is strong medicine, incredibly costly and extremely dangerous;  and while often curative of a number of social disorders, it can often kill the patient and destroy the society.

The constant necessity for national defense creates many new and advanced social adjustments, and the society of today enjoys the benefit of a long list of useful innovations, which were at first wholly military.  War has had a social value to past civilizations because it:

• 1. Imposed discipline on men, enforced cooperation.
• 2. Put a premium on fortitude and courage.
• 3. Fostered and solidified nationalism.
• 4. Destroyed weak and unfit peoples.
• 5. Dissolved the illusion of primitive equality and selectively stratified society.

War has always had a certain evolutionary value in the past, but like slavery, it must at some point be abandoned as civilization slowly advances. Past world wars literally forced us to travel and promoted cultural intercourse; but these ends are now better served by modern transportation and communication. Olden wars strengthened nations, but modern wars disrupt all civilized culture. Ancient warfare resulted in the decimation of inferior peoples; but the net result of modern conflict is the selective destruction of the very best human stocks. Early wars promoted organization and efficiency, but these have become the obsessions of modern industry.

During past ages, war was a social ferment which pushed civilization forward; but this result is now better attained by ambition, and invention. Ancient warfare supported the concept of a God of battles, but modern man has been told that God is love.

War has served many valuable purposes in the past;  it has been an indispensable scaffolding in the building of civilization. but it is now culturally bankrupt— incapable of producing any dividends of social gain in any way commensurate with the terrible losses it produces.

Physicians once believed in bloodletting as a cure for many diseases, but they have since discovered better remedies. Likewise must the international bloodletting of war give place to more intelligent methods for curing the ills of even backward nations.

The nations of our planet— Urantia— have long been engaged in the gigantic struggle between nationalistic militarism and industrialism. In many ways this conflict is analogous to the age-long struggle between the first herder-hunters and the farmers of land. But if industrialism is to triumph over militarism, it must avoid the dangers which beset it. The perils of corporate industry are:

1. The strong drift toward materialism, spiritual blindness.

2. The worship of wealth-power, value distortion.

3. The vices of luxury, cultural immaturity.

4. The increasing dangers of indolence, service insensitivity.

5. The growth of undesirable racial softness, biologic deterioration.

6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery, personality stagnation.
Labor is ennobling but drudgery is benumbing.

Militarism is autocratic and cruel— savage. It does promote social organization among the conquerors, but it disintegrates the vanquished. Industrialism is more civilized and should be so carried on as to promote initiative and to encourage individualism. Society should in every way possible foster originality.

We should not make the mistake of glorifying war; rather should we discern what it’s done for society so that we may the more accurately visualize what its substitutes must provide if we would continue the advancement of our civilization. And if such adequate substitutes are not provided, then we can be sure that war will continue; maybe even “a hundred years.”

We will never accept peace as a normal mode of living until we have been thoroughly and repeatedly convinced that peace is best for our material welfare;  and until our society wisely provides peaceful substitutes for the gratification of our inherent tendency periodically to let loose a collective drive designed to liberate our accumulating emotions and energies born of the self-preservation reactions of our species.

War might some day be honored as the school of experience which compelled a race of arrogant individualists to submit themselves to highly concentrated authority— a chief executive. Brutal and savage old-fashioned war may have selected the innately great men for leadership, but modern war no longer does this. The leaders our society must now turn to are the conquests of peace: industry; science; and social achievement. Fortunately, that choice has never been clearer.

Urantian Aborigine

The NEW YORKER cover of Barack and Michelle Obama as Muslim terrorists rekindled an old debate about satire, humor, racism, and fear. It was spun around a satirical cartoon which illustrated the lengths some human minds are willing, and able to go, to mask rather than transcend the racism inherent in their human nature.

Yes; racism is inherent in human nature; we don’t hate “others” by an act of will, we do it quite naturally. What’s up with that? Just like our mammalian ancestors, all humans beings are bellicose— exceedingly pugnacious as a rule, and with fiery tempers. Originally it served a useful evolutionary purpose when it came to survival; the more motivated monkey of the day did not hesitate to take his sundry weapons to the neighbors’ skulls and exterminate them. The species that won these battles most often progressively improved and therefore multiplied, and survived to wax fat on the land.

Soon they fanned out over the Mesopotamian peninsula, and with just seventy generations of evolution at work, they produced a singularly remarkable pair of twins, one male, one female. They had almost perfectly opposable thumbs; they walked upright. Their brains were smaller than yours and mine, but their improved intelligence propelled them into the leadership of their tribe, and their family grew to become the nucleus of the mid-mammals.

The mid-mammals begat the Primates. After almost nine hundred generations of development, covering about twenty-one thousand years from the origin of the dawn mammals, the Primates suddenly gave birth to two more remarkable creatures, the first true human beings.

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7 Things You’re Dying to Know

Sherry at A Feather Adrift has tagged me with a meme. The rules:

1. List these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

Fact #1. I don’t belong here— I’m innocent.
I’m only sorta kidding. Our planet Urantia is, in a peculiar sense, a prison/playpen for self-conscious monkey men. Granted, it’s a large, spectacularly beautiful and complex prison, and it would seem, a prison very poorly run, for the most part, by the most unqualified inmates; but there’s way more to it than that. There are no traditional “guards,” just a couple convenient things called gravity and an atmosphere that keeps us all on the surface, involuntarily breathing away, taking care of business, or fucking things up; that freewill thing, you know.

Generally speaking, the only practical way off the planet is with a toe-tag. It’s still a shame so few inmates realize they’re doing time here, or why, and even fewer actively seek the answer to that question, not to mention other essential information. It’s totally amazing, but true. They mostly just wander around the prison, occasionally shivving others, and getting shivved themselves, accidentally or on purpose. When they’ve done their time, most of them will wake up all slack-jawed in a new body on the next world, where they’ll spend the next 100 years or so learning all the shit they should’ve learned here.

Fact #2. I eat Cheetos.
It’s more than just the power of cheese, or the exquisite crunchiness; now they have jalapeño cheddar flavoring. Cheetos have always been my road trip snack of choice, despite yellow-sticky-finger. It’s no surprise that a dick like Joe Scarborough thinks he’s ridiculing bloggers who eat Cheetos in their undroos while we write; but the part about us wiping the cheesey goodness on our bare skin is Joe’s sick peccadillo, you can be sure; only he’s doing it while watching internet teletubbie porn:

Fact #3. My phosphenes have gotten nasty lately.
Not talking optical migraine here; but those little white critters that pop into your vision and swim a few strokes, then disappear, or sometimes they trigger an optical migraine. Maybe I should call them blogfiends; they always happen when I’m staring at a draft.

Serotonin Molecule

Fact #4. I make my own serotonin.
Yeh, yeh, we all do; but I make mine in the bathtub, twenty or thirty gallons at a time, two or three times a year, depending on the severity of the winter. Bulk chemicals, the whole nine yards. It keeps in a dark cool place, in an air-tight container; I use old wine bottles. Drink chilled.

Fact #5. I don’t wear a hat.
But I’m into guided self-observation, (see the clip) and have been whittling down the distractions that delay evolving my soul. If you don’t know how to self-observe, find yourself a copy of Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood and read it. Or better yet, The Urantia Book. You’ll see why. But be prepared to give up your hats.

•

Fact #6. I love water.
In Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land, Michael Valentine Smith introduces earthlings to the concept of “water brothers.” When I read the book in 1971, it seemed like a cool way to define a relationship with prospective young females, since sex was what water brothers most often shared besides the water.

But in time I realized the sheer beauty of water spoke volumes about it’s Creator; from the contemplation of eternity inspired by the crashing of waves, to the infinite variety of form created on it’s surface, to it’s power to keep all living things alive. Share Water.

Fact #7. I’m enlightened, and you can be too! No. Really.
Relatively speaking, of course. It simply means I know what I am, where I am, why I’m here, and where I’m going. All things that are freely available to anyone; again, read The Urantia Book. Kind of perfunctory stuff, when you think about it. I have a genuine personal religious experience with my Indwelling Spirit. But enlightenment doesn’t turn you into Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. You are still just an imperfect flesh and blood creature, albeit with one unusually amazing potential aspect: to live forever. Get after it, you clowns!

The Seven. . .

Do it, Fran. Blue Gal

You too, Drifty. Driftglass

Suzie-Q. . . SUZIE_Q

Quaker Dave. . . Quaker Dave

Jolly Roger. . . ReConstitution 2.0

Propagandee. . . I know where you live.

Dr. Zaius. . . Zaius Nation

The most extraordinary book to ever appear on this planet happens to be so circumstantially insulated from the ordinary channels of inquiry that even after a half million copies are loose in the world it remains a great cosmic mystery. I refer to The Urantia Book, about which there is so much to say yet it is so difficult to begin, that in my thirty-six year acquaintance with it I have yet to find even a remotely convenient way to do so.

Suffice it to say then, this time: It is the soul-satisfying banquet you’ve been waiting for; it is the sustenance of eternal life; it is the revelation a billion minds before yours would die to see; it is the current apex of human and divine cosmology.

This excerpt appears in the book as an “acknowledgment”:

“In formulating the succeeding presentations having to do with the portrayal of the character of the Universal Father and the nature of his Paradise associates, together with an attempted description of the perfect central universe and the encircling seven superuniverses, we are to be guided by the mandate of the superuniverse rulers which directs that we shall, in all our efforts to reveal truth and coordinate essential knowledge, give preference to the highest existing human concepts pertaining to the subjects to be presented. We may resort to pure revelation only when the concept of presentation has had no adequate previous expression by the human mind.

“Successive planetary revelations of divine truth invariably embrace the highest existing concepts of spiritual values as a part of the new and enhanced coordination of planetary knowledge. Accordingly, in making these presentations about God and his universe associates, we have selected as the basis of these papers more than one thousand human concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings. Wherein these human concepts, assembled from the God-knowing mortals of the past and the present, are inadequate to portray the truth as we are directed to reveal it, we will unhesitatingly supplement them, for this purpose drawing upon our own superior knowledge of the reality and divinity of the Paradise Deities and their transcendent residential universe.

“We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience– God-consciousness.”

[Indited by an Orvonton Divine Counselor, Chief of the Corps of Superuniverse Personalities assigned to portray on Urantia the truth concerning the Paradise Deities and the universe of universes.]

Enjoy.

PARAG KHANNA writes in “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony“. . .

It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.

Why? Weren’t we supposed to reconnect with the United Nations and reaffirm to the world that America can, and should, lead it to collective security and prosperity? Indeed, improvements to America’s image may or may not occur, but either way, they mean little.

And that is so because, not only did we not “reconnect with the United Nations,” but we remain clueless about the growing urgency of establishing the working rudiments of a genuine federation of all nations, bringing about a global government.

The cruel irony is, the nation of independent states who surrendered their sovereignty to a federal government and thereby created the strongest, freest nation on planet earth, has shown neither the moral insight or leadership ability to engineer the same workable model on a global scale. Instead, we have a moronic cowboy who takes democracy to other nations through war and occupation, killing a million or so of the natives in the process.

Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but it has no permanent friends either. Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial counter-movements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived, and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth.

Yep; the hegemony wielded by Imperial America has done just as much to grow an “alternate world order” than anything Europe or China has done. Nor does it serve America’s interests to do anything to inhibit their growth. Perhaps when we find the collective wisdom to use the power jointly in an effort to insure peace throughout the world, we can begin solving the grievances smaller nations have concerning their place in the “alternate world order.”

The Geopolitical Marketplace

At best, America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three.

And we will continue to lose. . . unless we recognize we all sink or swim together. Each passing year brings new urgency to solve the increasingly complex problems our interdependent world brings; and these problems will persist as long as we continue to cling to the illusive notions of unlimited national sovereignty.

The growth of political power must continue to encompass larger and larger segments of the total of mankind, until the stage is set for the final consummation of political growth— the government of all mankind, by all mankind, and for all mankind.

Urantia [earth] will not enjoy lasting peace until the so-called sovereign nations intelligently and fully surrender their sovereign powers into the hands of the brotherhood of men—mankind government. Internationalism—Leagues of Nations—can never bring permanent peace to mankind. World-wide confederations of nations will effectively prevent minor wars and acceptably control the smaller nations, but they will not prevent world wars nor control the three, four, or five most powerful governments. In the face of real conflicts, one of these world powers will withdraw from the League and declare war.

You cannot prevent nations going to war as long as they remain infected with the delusional virus of national sovereignty. Internationalism is a step in the right direction. An international police force will prevent many minor wars, but it will not be effective in preventing major wars, conflicts between the great military governments of earth.

As the number of truly sovereign nations (great powers) decreases, so do both opportunity and need for mankind government increase. When there are only a few really sovereign (great) powers, either they must embark on the life and death struggle for national (imperial) supremacy, or else, by voluntary surrender of certain prerogatives of sovereignty, they must create the essential nucleus of supernational power which will serve as the beginning of the real sovereignty of all mankind.

Peace will not come to Urantia until every so-called sovereign nation surrenders its power to make war into the hands of a representative government of all mankind. Political sovereignty is innate with the peoples of the world. When all the peoples of Urantia create a world government, they have the right and the power to make such a government SOVEREIGN; and when such a representative or democratic world power controls the world’s land, air, and naval forces, peace on earth and good will among men can prevail but not until then. —The Urantia Book

A tiny tiny smidgen of Galaxies

This morning, our solar system is a few billion years past the swing around the southern curvature of a great galactic oval, so that we are just now advancing beyond the southeastern bend and are moving swiftly through the long and comparatively straightaway northern path. And for untold ages, an enormous aggregation of suns, black holes, planets and moons will pursue this almost direct northerly course.

Our world, Urantia belongs to a system which is well out towards the borderland of our “local universe”; and our local universe is at present traversing the periphery of Orvonton, the name of an enormous galactic system of which our world is an infinitesimally small part. Beyond us, there are still others, but we are far far removed in space from the physical systems which swing around the great circle in comparative proximity to the Great Source and Center.

Does that help?

I didn’t think so.

Maybe try this:

Practically all of the starry realms visible to the naked eye belong to the seventh section of the grand universe, the superuniverse of Orvonton. The vast Milky Way starry system represents the central nucleus of Orvonton, being largely beyond the borders of [our] local universe. This great aggregation of suns, dark islands of space, double stars, globular clusters, star clouds, spiral and other nebulae, together with myriads of individual planets, forms a watch-like, elongated-circular grouping of about one seventh of the inhabited evolutionary universes.

From the astronomical position of Urantia, as you look through the cross section of near-by systems to the great Milky Way, you observe that the spheres of Orvonton are traveling in a

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