The Urantia Book

43. The Constellations

5. The Edentia Fathers since the Lucifer Rebellion

^43.5.1 The rotation of the Most Highs on Edentia was suspended at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. We now have the same rulers who were on duty at that time. We infer that no change in these rulers will be made until Lucifer and his associates are finally disposed of.

^43.5.2 The present government of the constellation, however, has been expanded to include twelve Sons of the Vorondadek order. These twelve are as follows:

^43.5.3 1. The Constellation Father. The present Most High ruler of Norlatiadek is number 617,318 of the Vorondadek series of Nebadon. He saw service in many constellations throughout our local universe before taking up his Edentia responsibilities.

^43.5.4 2. The senior Most High associate.

^43.5.5 3. The junior Most High associate.

^43.5.6 4. The Most High adviser, the personal representative of Michael since his attainment of the status of a Master Son.

^43.5.7 5. The Most High executive, the personal representative of Gabriel stationed on Edentia ever since the Lucifer rebellion.

^43.5.8 6. The Most High chief of planetary observers, the director of the Vorondadek observers stationed on the isolated worlds of Satania.

^43.5.9 7. The Most High referee, the Vorondadek Son intrusted with the duty of adjusting all difficulties consequential to rebellion within the constellation.

^43.5.10 8. The Most High emergency administrator, the Vorondadek Son charged with the task of adapting the emergency enactments of the Norlatiadek legislature to the rebellion-isolated worlds of Satania.

^43.5.11 9. The Most High mediator, the Vorondadek Son assigned to harmonize the special bestowal adjustments on Urantia with the routine administration of the constellation. The presence of certain archangel activities and numerous other irregular ministrations on Urantia, together with the special activities of the Brilliant Evening Stars on Jerusem, necessitates the functioning of this Son.

^43.5.12 10. The Most High judge-advocate, the head of the emergency tribunal devoted to the adjustment of the special problems of Norlatiadek growing out of the confusion consequent upon the Satania rebellion.

^43.5.13 11. The Most High liaison, the Vorondadek Son attached to the Edentia rulers but commissioned as a special counselor with the Faithful of Days regarding the best course to pursue in the management of problems pertaining to rebellion and creature disloyalty.

^43.5.14 12. The Most High director, the president of the emergency council of Edentia. All personalities assigned to Norlatiadek because of the Satania upheaval constitute the emergency council, and their presiding officer is a Vorondadek Son of extraordinary experience.

^43.5.15 And this takes no account of the numerous Vorondadeks, envoys of Nebadon constellations, and others who are also resident on Edentia.

^43.5.16 Ever since the Lucifer rebellion the Edentia Fathers have exercised a special care over Urantia and the other isolated worlds of Satania. Long ago the prophet recognized the controlling hand of the Constellation Fathers in the affairs of nations. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people.”

^43.5.17 Every quarantined or isolated world has a Vorondadek Son acting as an observer. He does not participate in planetary administration except when ordered by the Constellation Father to intervene in the affairs of the nations. Actually it is this Most High observer who “rules in the kingdoms of men.” Urantia is one of the isolated worlds of Norlatiadek, and a Vorondadek observer has been stationed on the planet ever since the Caligastia betrayal. When Machiventa Melchizedek ministered in semimaterial form on Urantia, he paid respectful homage to the Most High observer then on duty, as it is written, “And Melchizedek, king of Salem, was the priest of the Most High.” Melchizedek revealed the relations of this Most High observer to Abraham when he said, “And blessed be the Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

6. The Gardens of God

^43.6.1 The system capitals are particularly beautified with material and mineral constructions, while the universe headquarters is more reflective of spiritual glory, but the capitals of the constellations are the acme of morontia activities and living embellishments. On the constellation headquarters worlds living embellishment is more generally utilized, and it is this preponderance of life - botanic artistry - that causes these worlds to be called “the gardens of God.”

^43.6.2 About one half of Edentia is devoted to the exquisite gardens of the Most Highs, and these gardens are among the most entrancing morontia creations of the local universe. This explains why the extraordinarily beautiful places on the inhabited worlds of Norlatiadek are so often called “the garden of Eden.”

^43.6.3 Centrally located in this magnificent garden is the worship shrine of the Most Highs. The Psalmist must have known something about these things, for he wrote: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Most Highs? Who shall stand in this holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully.” At this shrine the Most Highs, on every tenth day of relaxation, lead all Edentia in the worshipful contemplation of God the Supreme.

^43.6.4 The architectural worlds enjoy ten forms of life of the material order. On Urantia there is plant and animal life, but on such a world as Edentia there are ten divisions of the material orders of life. Were you to view these ten divisions of Edentia life, you would quickly classify the first three as vegetable and the last three as animal, but you would be utterly unable to comprehend the nature of the intervening four groups of prolific and fascinating forms of life.

^43.6.5 Even the distinctively animal life is very different from that of the evolutionary worlds, so different that it is quite impossible to portray to mortal minds the unique character and affectionate nature of these nonspeaking creatures. There are thousands upon thousands of living creatures which your imagination could not possibly picture. The whole animal creation is of an entirely different order from the gross animal species of the evolutionary planets. But all this animal life is most intelligent and exquisitely serviceable, and all the various species are surprisingly gentle and touchingly companionable. There are no carnivorous creatures on such architectural worlds; there is nothing in all Edentia to make any living being afraid.

^43.6.6 The vegetable life is also very different from that of Urantia, consisting of both material and morontia varieties. The material growths have a characteristic green coloration, but the morontia equivalents of vegetative life have a violet or orchid tinge of varying hue and reflection. Such morontia vegetation is purely an energy growth; when eaten there is no residual portion.

^43.6.7 Being endowed with ten divisions of physical life, not to mention the morontia variations, these architectural worlds provide tremendous possibilities for the biologic beautification of the landscape and of the material and the morontia structures. The celestial artisans direct the native spornagia in this extensive work of botanic decoration and biologic embellishment. Whereas your artists must resort to inert paint and lifeless marble to portray their concepts, the celestial artisans and the univitatia more frequently utilize living materials to represent their ideas and to capture their ideals.

^43.6.8 If you enjoy the flowers, shrubs, and trees of Urantia, then will you feast your eyes upon the botanical beauty and the floral grandeur of the supernal gardens of Edentia. But it is beyond my powers of description to undertake to convey to the mortal mind an adequate concept of these beauties of the heavenly worlds. Truly, eye has not seen such glories as await your arrival on these worlds of the mortal-ascension adventure.

7. The Univitatia

^43.7.1 Univitatia are the permanent citizens of Edentia and its associated worlds, all seven hundred seventy worlds surrounding the constellation headquarters being under their supervision. These children of the Creator Son and the Creative Spirit are projected on a plane of existence in between the material and the spiritual, but they are not morontia creatures. The natives of each of the seventy major spheres of Edentia possess different visible forms, and the morontia mortals have their morontia forms attuned to correspond with the ascending scale of the univitatia each time they change residence from one Edentia sphere to another as they pass successively from world number one to world number seventy.

^43.7.2 Spiritually, the univitatia are alike; intellectually, they vary as do mortals; in form, they much resemble the morontia state of existence, and they are created to function in seventy diverse orders of personality. Each of these orders of univitatia exhibits ten major variations of intellectual activity, and each of these varying intellectual types presides over the special training and cultural schools of progressive occupational or practical socialization on some one of the ten satellites which swing around each of the major Edentia worlds.

^43.7.3 These seven hundred minor worlds are technical spheres of practical education in the working of the entire local universe and are open to all classes of intelligent beings. These training schools of special skill and technical knowledge are not conducted exclusively for ascending mortals, although morontia students constitute by far the largest group of all those who attend these courses of training. When you are received on any one of the seventy major worlds of social culture, you are immediately given clearance for each of the ten surrounding satellites.

^43.7.4 In the various courtesy colonies, ascending morontia mortals predominate among the reversion directors, but the univitatia represent the largest group associated with the Nebadon corps of celestial artisans. In all Orvonton no extra-Havona beings excepting the Uversa abandonters can equal the univitatia in artistic skill, social adaptability, and co-ordinating cleverness.

^43.7.5 These citizens of the constellation are not actually members of the artisan corps, but they freely work with all groups and contribute much to making the constellation worlds the chief spheres for the realization of the magnificent artistic possibilities of transition culture. They do not function beyond the confines of the constellation headquarters worlds.

8. The Edentia Training Worlds

^43.8.1 The physical endowment of Edentia and its surrounding spheres is well-nigh perfect; they could hardly equal the spiritual grandeur of the spheres of Salvington, but they far surpass the glories of the training worlds of Jerusem. All these Edentia spheres are energized directly by the universal space currents, and their enormous power systems, both material and morontial, are expertly supervised and distributed by the constellation centers, assisted by a competent corps of Master Physical Controllers and Morontia Power Supervisors.

^43.8.2 The time spent on the seventy training worlds of transition morontia culture associated with the Edentia age of mortal ascension, is the most settled period in an ascending mortal's career up to the status of a finaliter; this is really the typical morontia life. While you are re-keyed each time you pass from one major cultural world to another, you retain the same morontia body, and there are no periods of personality unconsciousness.

^43.8.3 Your sojourn on Edentia and its associated spheres will be chiefly occupied with the mastery of group ethics, the secret of pleasant and profitable interrelationship between the various universe and superuniverse orders of intelligent personalities.

^43.8.4 On the mansion worlds you completed the unification of the evolving mortal personality; on the system capital you attained Jerusem citizenship and achieved the willingness to submit the self to the disciplines of group activities and co-ordinated undertakings; but now on the constellation training worlds you are to achieve the real socialization of your evolving morontia personality. This supernal cultural acquirement consists in learning how to:

^43.8.5 1. Live happily and work effectively with ten diverse fellow morontians, while ten such groups are associated in companies of one hundred and then federated in corps of one thousand.

^43.8.6 2. Abide joyfully and co-operate heartily with ten univitatia, who, though similar intellectually to morontia beings, are very different in every other way. And then must you function with this group of ten as it co-ordinates with ten other families, which are in turn confederated into a corps of one thousand univitatia.

^43.8.7 3. Achieve simultaneous adjustment to both fellow morontians and these host univitatia. Acquire the ability voluntarily and effectively to co-operate with your own order of beings in close working association with a somewhat dissimilar group of intelligent creatures.

^43.8.8 4. While thus socially functioning with beings like and unlike yourself, achieve intellectual harmony with, and make vocational adjustment to, both groups of associates.

^43.8.9 5. While attaining satisfactory socialization of the personality on intellectual and vocational levels, further perfect the ability to live in intimate contact with similar and slightly dissimilar beings with ever-lessening irritability and ever-diminishing resentment. The reversion directors contribute much to this latter attainment through their group-play activities.

^43.8.10 6. Adjust all of these various socialization techniques to the furtherance of the progressive co-ordination of the Paradise-ascension career; augment universe insight by enhancing the ability to grasp the eternal goal-meanings concealed within these seemingly insignificant time-space activities.

^43.8.11 7. And then, climax all of these procedures of multisocialization with the concurrent enhancement of spiritual insight as it pertains to the augmentation of all phases of personal endowment through group spiritual association and morontia co-ordination. Intellectually, socially, and spiritually two moral creatures do not merely double their personal potentials of universe achievement by partnership technique; they more nearly quadruple their attainment and accomplishment possibilities.

^43.8.12 We have portrayed Edentia socialization as an association of a morontia mortal with a univitatia family group consisting of ten intellectually dissimilar individuals concomitant with a similar association with ten fellow morontians. But on the first seven major worlds only one ascending mortal lives with ten univitatia. On the second group of seven major worlds two mortals abide with each native group of ten, and so on up until, on the last group of seven major spheres, ten morontia beings are domiciled with ten univitatia. As you learn how better to socialize with the univitatia, you will practice such improved ethics in your relations with your fellow morontia progressors.

^43.8.13 As ascending mortals you will enjoy your sojourn on the progress worlds of Edentia, but you will not experience that personal thrill of satisfaction which characterizes your initial contact with universe affairs on the system headquarters or your farewell touch with these realities on the final worlds of the universe capital.

9. Citizenship on Edentia

^43.9.1 After graduation from world number seventy, ascending mortals take up residence on Edentia. Ascenders now, for the first time, attend the “assemblies of Paradise” and hear the story of their far-flung career as it is depicted by the Faithful of Days, the first of the Supreme Trinity-origin Personalities they have met.

^43.9.2 This entire sojourn on the constellation training worlds, culminating in Edentia citizenship, is a period of true and heavenly bliss for the morontia progressors. Throughout your sojourn on the system worlds you were evolving from a near-animal to a morontia creature; you were more material than spiritual. On the Salvington spheres you will be evolving from a morontia being to the status of a true spirit; you will be more spiritual than material. But on Edentia, ascenders are midway between their former and their future estates, midway in their passage from evolutionary animal to ascending spirit. During your whole stay on Edentia and its worlds you are “as the angels”; you are constantly progressing but all the while maintaining a general and a typical morontia status.

^43.9.3 This constellation sojourn of an ascending mortal is the most uniform and stabilized epoch in the entire career of morontia progression. This experience constitutes the prespirit socialization training of the ascenders. It is analogous to the prefinaliter spiritual experience of Havona and to the preabsonite training on Paradise.

^43.9.4 Ascending mortals on Edentia are chiefly occupied with the assignments on the seventy progressive univitatia worlds. They also serve in varied capacities on Edentia itself, mainly in conjunction with the constellation program concerned with group, racial, national, and planetary welfare. The Most Highs are not so much engaged in fostering individual advancement on the inhabited worlds; they rule in the kingdoms of men rather than in the hearts of individuals.

^43.9.5 And on that day when you are prepared to leave Edentia for the Salvington career, you will pause and look back on one of the most beautiful and most refreshing of all your epochs of training this side of Paradise. But the glory of it all augments as you ascend inward and achieve increased capacity for enlarged appreciation of divine meanings and spiritual values.

^43.9.6 [Sponsored by Malavatia Melchizedek.]