Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 18:30:03 -0400 
To: urantial@ubook.org 
From: David Kantor <dkantor@linkzone.com> 
Subject: Response to Lee Armstrong

Dear Lee; 

Thank you for your response to my post related to the resignation of Eric Kosh from the unity video project and the Fellowship. I hope the comments I've included below address some of the areas in which I apparently was unclear. 

There is a high degree of visionary content in the IUA charter. As I talk with IUA members I appreciate that it is this visionary and spiritually stimulating content which captivates their allegiance and motivates them to undertake a variety of tasks important to the spread of the revelation. I deeply appreciate this and am grateful for the growing group of dedicated revelation workers. 

The parts of the IUA charter which disturb me are the social controls which have been added to manage a projected view of how people are likely to respond to the revelation -- a view clearly articulated in Martin Myer's paper, "Unity, not Uniformity." 

Martin's paper articulates a world view containing strongly expressed assumptions that there will likely be widespread attempts to distort and pervert the teachings of the book. 

Here are some excerpts from Martin's paper: 

"It was evident that The URANTIA Book....would be defenseless under the indiscriminate pen of irresponsible and unprincipled people, unless it were properly protected." 

"The URANTIA Book was not placed on the planet so that it could be summarily butchered at the hands of shortsighted and selfish individuals who would wish to control The URANTIA Book to make a name for themselves, or worst of all, who would wish permanently to distort The URANTIA Teachings for commercial gain or to conform to their own prejudiced and humanly limited point of view." 

"The teachings of The URANTIA Book, distorted through indiscriminate plagiarism, must not be permitted to be foisted upon sincere truth seekers in the name of Truth." 

"... there are those who threaten to modify it to suit their own whimsical tastes, if only by the subtle twisting of a phrase here and there, or by quoting out of context." 

"Honorable and loyal members who are sincerely interested in the welfare of The URANTIA Book will do everything possible to protect the integrity of its superlative message. If we do not, we can only watch in this life or look back from The Mansion Worlds--and look on with shame--as The URANTIA Book is dismembered and cannibalized by clever and corrupt individuals and groups ..." 

Does this sound familiar? It should. Consider these quotes from the IUA charter: 

"Unless there is a designated group in place which is uniquely authorized to use the marks associated with the book and its publisher, any misled, erratic, or unscrupulous individual (or group) could appear to speak for The URANTIA Book." 

"Anyone can buy a URANTIA Book, read a few pages of it, and proceed to make unwise, uninformed, and even malicious public statements which could prejudice many people, and perhaps even entire groups, against The URANTIA Book." 

"The explicitly authorized use of the marks by IUA prevents other groups or individuals, good, bad, or indifferent, from usurping them for their own purposes .... Were such unauthorized use to occur, orderly liaison and dissemination to the wider public could be disrupted; the marketplace would be confused; and the copyright and integrity of The URANTIA Book itself could be jeopardized." 

The IUA charter attempts to configure organizational controls for defense against the fears expressed in "Unity, not Uniformity." (The manner in which this fearful view was largely generated by Christy in her declining years and passed onto the Kansas fraternity brothers, each of whom has taken his turn at attempting to superimpose it upon the movement, is a matter for a completely different discussion.) 

We now have more than forty years of data regarding the way in which people from different backgrounds respond to the revelation. And what do we actually observe? People trying to develop meaningful reader communities, parents trying to figure out how to make the teachings available to their children, people in other countries trying to stimulate the preparation of translations, and readers trying to develop productive modes of revelation-based service. 

What disturbs me most about the IUA charter is that men and women who want to socialize their spiritual experience with the book and who desire to seek avenues of service with other readers, are required to pledge their allegiance to the trustees as a precondition of being allowed to enter into this social association of believers in the revelation. 

Through the IUA charter, cosmic loyalty resulting from personal spiritual experience is purposefully usurped and redirected to loyalty to 5 men and a humanly-conceived business plan. This is inexcusable thievery of the personal repercussions of an epochal revelation and it needs to be stopped before it is propagated on a global scale. The long-term potential for institutional excess in this scheme is dangerously high. 

You attempt to brush off threats against my life as simple misunderstandings. I took them as serious. The statements which I attributed to a trustee were made to me by Richard Keeler minutes after he was on stage doing his unity performance in San Francisco. Among other threats he told me about how much time he spent thinking up ways to have me killed; that he spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to watch me die a slow, painful death. No, I didn't misunderstand this, Lee. In fact, I should point out that following the March meeting in Chicago he referred to this threat once again and said, "I've decided not to do it -- you don't need to worry about it." 

Now what I want to draw your attention to here are not the threats themselves but the fact that your President is one moment on stage promoting the idea that we need to let go of the past and learn to work together for the sake of unity, and a few minutes later is verbally assaulting a member of the audience who came to hear his presentation. This ought to make it perfectly clear to you that attitudes which are being marketed publicly to the readership do not necessarily represent the actual attitudes of the trustee doing the marketing. (It is not fair to characterize all the trustees by the indiscretions of a single individual and this is not my intent here. Nevertheless, I hold them each accountable for maintaining a dysfunctional system and repackaging it for consumption by the readership in hopes of broadening its base of support.) 

Richard mentioned the rape charges which had been brought against him in Hawaii. He chuckled and said, "I never could figure that one out -- I thought I had given her a pretty good time." This is your President, Lee, talking about his exploitation of one of your sisters who reads The Urantia Book. 

Committed as you are to the support of the trustees -- as is required by the IUA charter -- how do you accept such abuse? Will you continue to defend a President who is held accountable to no one simply because he pays all the salaries, rents and travel expenses of his staff and supporters -- essentially owns the place? 

Other trustees know that Richard Keeler poses serious liabilities to the movement. The problem is that their bloated organization is addicted to Keeler's money. It's like a giant leech attached to Keeler's commodities accounts. Perhaps there's an anticipation that Keeler can be finessed out of the organization while leaving behind an endowment which the others can then use to further their own purposes. Nasty business, this. 

Lee, I hope you will make sure your loyalty is to truth and reality, not to an illusion which someone or some group is fostering in order to appeal to your highest ideals, hoping thereby to gain your support for a questionable agenda which may be somewhat less than wise, good or true. 

It's fine to publicize positive programs and achievements. But it is very dangerous to use them to mask long term structural problems in Urantia Foundation which desperately need to be addressed in order to avert serious difficulties in the future. 

We keep hearing that the revelation and its translations need to be protected. I ask you, protected from what or from whom? To my knowledge, no trustee or Foundation supporter has ever identified the imagined enemy or situation. Let's try to consider some of the possible damaging scenarios which might take place: 

Scenario 1: Someone takes large portions of the text without permission and uses them in a movie or a novel for their own personal gain. By changing the context in which the text is presented, the original meaning is distorted or lost. 

Scenario 2: Someone takes a portion of the text and adds to it in such a manner that it would appear on the surface to be an authoritative addition to the original text. This causes confusion in the marketplace. 

Scenario 3: Someone writes a book discrediting the revelation, falsely representing the individuals who labored to make it a reality, and belittling the people who read it today. 

Scenario 4: Someone writes a sarcastic, sacrilegious parody of the book. 

These seem to be the kind of scenarios implied in conversations about the matter. But consider: 

Scenario 1 has already been done -- J.J. Benitiz published his "El Caballo" series and sold millions of copies. The Foundation took no action. In fact, countless individuals sought out The Urantia Book and became avid readers as a result of reading Benitiz' writing. 

Scenario 2 has already been done -- by Gabriel of Sedona. His books are on the shelves of stores which don't even carry The Urantia Book. The Foundation has had no basis for taking any action to prevent this. 

Scenario 3 has already been done -- by Martin Gardner. Urantia Foundation was impotent to stop this highly biased and distorted presentation of the revelation which was released to a mass market. 

Scenario 4, parody, is protected by law; Urantia Foundation could do nothing to stop such a work from being made public. 

Lee, the assumption that copyright law can be used to protect the integrity of a text is simply wrong. The trustees would have us believe that the revelators told the founding Forumites, "Look, this revelation is so tenuous and weak that it will require reinforcement and support from the human legal system and constant vigilance on the part of your successors in order to survive in the world." 

This is exactly what the trustees are asking us to believe took place. 

What about the following potentially destructive Scenario? An eccentric multi-millionaire who has no background in the development of religious movements or social systems simply buys Urantia Foundation. He creates a captive office staff by providing salaries, a place to live and social identities. He then flies them all over the country attempting to promote the legitimization of his organization's claim to divine authority over the management of the revelation. Pretty twisted, isn't it? 

Already been done. Richard Keeler essentially bought Urantia Foundation in 1988 from an old fraternity brother who had three out of 5 trustees quit in disgust after running the organization into near bankruptcy following the CUBS lawsuit. As Richard himself recently told me in a disgusted tone of voice, "When I got there the place was on fire and you wouldn't even loan me a squirt gun." Since then he's remodeled the building, put a staff in place and spent a lot of money on public relations efforts to spin the Foundation's old operating philosophy into a form more acceptable to a broader base of potential supporters. 

Let me back up for a minute here, Lee. 

In your post you said: 

"The revelators named Urantia Foundation as the decision maker for the material aspects of the revelation." You also state that [the trustees] "...were instructed to copyright the book and trademark the name..." 

We could argue endlessly as to whether or not these statements reflect the truth -- I don't believe they do. But if you truly want to understand something about guidance which may have been given by the Midwayers to the founding Forum members I suggest you spend some time reviewing early documents written by Dr. Sadler, Bill Sadler, Bill Hales, and others. There you will find support for the fact that at least two guiding principles may have been given to the early founders. 

The first one has to do with financial support of the revelation. Bill Hales offered to provide all the funds to have the book published. The midwayers refused his generous offer indicating that creating a broad base of financial support would be a much safer way in which to proceed. So here is principle-from-the-revelators number 1: "Prevent the development of any financial or political conditions which would allow any one individual to gain control of the revelation." 

The second principle-from-the-revelators has to do with making sure that there is no connection whatsoever between the business of publishing the book and the social organization of readers. (See my earlier response to Eric for the supporting references on this.) 

How is it these so-called "trustees" blatantly violate well-documented suggestions provided by the revelators, while they simultaneously attempt to convince us that they are operating loyally to mandates for which no documentation exists? 

In fact, the appearance of serious fractures and discord within the readership community parallels the slow abandonment of these two founding principles. 

Am I trying to be divisive? No. I strongly support the integration of all readership groups and their mobilization to be about the task of bringing the revelation to a distracted world. Unless we coordinate our efforts we will be wasting valuable resources. 

Do I want to destroy Urantia Foundation? No. We urgently need a viable business organization which can responsibly publish and distribute books and translations. The problems with Urantia Foundation have to do with the thoughtless attempt to foster a rapidly growing social movement using a business structure which was designed to oversee the publication of a book, combined with the erroneous belief that this business structure was divinely mandated. 

Book publishers don't need to be constrained by the same checks and balances as do individuals responsible for fostering social or religious movements. Reviewing the past, it is easy to project that we will continue to have difficulties as long as Urantia Foundation attempts to maintain its present organizational mythos and financial dependencies. 

The present-day structure is but a dim remnant of the organization envisioned by the founding Forum members. I urge all readers to insist upon the substantial reform of this organization before providing any support which could be used for international expansion -- particularly the exploitation of translation copyrights for the establishment of a global power base. Urantia Foundation today has far more potential for evolving into an organization resembling the Papacy or the Office of the President of the Mormon Church then of becoming a useful coordinator of kingdom builders. 

What to do? 

1.) An important first step is addressing the "divine mandate" claim. The trustees should be very explicit about this, either documenting their claim or ceasing to use it to gain the support of unsuspecting new readers. If there is no substance to the trustee's claim of having a divine mandate, then there is some very serious twisting of truth going on. Responsible readers need to insist that it stop. 

2.) Seek as clear an understanding as possible about the nature of our present situation. Be honest! Make sure we understand past errors which created present difficulties. Repair and rebuild. Serious and deep structural reforms need to be made before the organization grows bigger and more dependent on its present dysfunctional financial and political processes and ever more reliant on public relations machinery to explain itself to the readers. 

3.) Make sure that reform is accompanied by the development of broad-based financial support. I am very grateful that there have been individuals who have been willing to finance reader organizations as startups. But it is time for the readers to pitch in and do a better job of financially supporting those organizations whose programs they feel are beneficial. This is an essential element in promoting a greater degree of organizational health, vitality and accountability. 

4.) Encourage serious study of The Urantia Book itself. Many of the troublesome phenomena we see in our community simply would not exist within a readership more intimately familiar with the cosmology and teachings of The Urantia Book. Reader education must have a high priority. 

5.) Lastly, remember the words of the Master, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." If our history embarrasses you today, make sure that when you read it ten years from now you can feel satisfied that you confronted the truth, grappled with difficulties and made a difference. 

Lee, if I don't stop here my response will be as long as yours and my comments will fall under the condemnation of morontia mota number 28. I know that if any single comment I make can be discredited that all the rest of what I say can easily be brought into question. I have therefore done my best to accurately convey my experience and to clearly present my perceptions of our present situation. I hope this is helpful to our broader endeavor. 

In friendship, 

David Kantor