Lucifer was a magnificent being, a brilliant personality. He had experienced service in many systems, had been a high counselor of his group, and was distinguished for wisdom, sagacity, and efficiency. He was designated as one of the one hundred most able and brilliant personalities in more than seven hundred thousand of his kind. From such a magnificent beginning, through evil and error, he embraced sin. He succumbed to the urge of self and surrendered to the sophistry of spurious personal liberty--rejection of universe allegiance and disregard of fraternal obligations, blindness to cosmic relationships. [UB 35:0] [UB 35:8] [UB 53:0:1]

     Lucifer was a created Son of the local universe, and of him it was said: "You were perfect in all your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you."
     Many times had he been in counsel with the Most Highs of Edentia. And Lucifer reigned "upon the holy mountain of God," the administrative mount of Jerusem, for he was the chief executive of a great system of 607 inhabited worlds. [Ezekiel 28:14,15] [UB 53:1:1]

     Lucifer is now the fallen and deposed Sovereign of Satania. Self-contemplation is most disastrous, even to the exalted personalities of the celestial world. Of Lucifer it was said: "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom because of your brightness." Your olden prophet saw his sad estate when he wrote: "How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cast down, you who dared to confuse the worlds!"
Comment. Some of the passages in Ezekiel 28:13-19 may be a reference to Lucifer. [Isaiah 14:12-17] [UB 53:1:3]

     Lucifer assigned his first lieutenant, Satan, to advocate his cause on our planet. Satan was a member of the same primary group of Lanonandeks but had never functioned as a System Sovereign; he entered fully into the Lucifer insurrection. The "devil" is none other than Caligastia, the deposed Planetary Prince of Urantia and a Son of the secondary order of Lanonandeks. At the time Michael [Jesus] was on Urantia in the flesh, Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia were leagued together to effect the miscarriage of his bestowal mission. But they signally failed. [UB 53:1:4]

     Abaddon was the chief of the staff of Caligastia. He followed his master into rebellion and has ever since acted as chief executive of the Urantia rebels. Beelzebub was the leader of the disloyal midway creatures who allied themselves with the forces of the traitorous Caligastia. [UB 53:1:5] [Matthew 10:25] [Matthew 12:24,27] [Mark 3:22] [Luke 11:18,19] [Revelation 9:11]

     The dragon eventually became the symbolic representation of all these evil personages. Upon the triumph of Michael, "Gabriel came down from Salvington and bound the dragon (all the rebel leaders) for an age." Of the Jerusem seraphic rebels it is written: "And the angels who kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he has reserved in sure chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day." [UB 53:1:6] [Jude 1:6] [Revelation 20:2]

     There must have been a pride of self that nourished itself to the point of self-deception, so that Lucifer for a time really persuaded himself that his contemplation of rebellion was actually for the good of the system, if not of the universe. By the time his plans had developed to the point of disillusionment, no doubt he had gone too far for his original and mischief-making pride to permit him to stop. At some point in this experience he became insincere, and evil evolved into deliberate and willful sin. That this happened is proved by the subsequent conduct of this brilliant executive.
     Lucifer first announced his plans to Satan, but it required several months to corrupt the mind of his able and brilliant associate. However, when once converted to the rebel theories, Satan became a bold and earnest advocate of "self-assertion and liberty." [UB 53:2]

The Lucifer Manifesto.
     Whatever the early origins of trouble in the hearts of Lucifer and Satan, the final outbreak took form as the Lucifer Declaration of Liberty. The cause of the rebels was stated under three heads: [1] The Reality of the Universal Father; [2] The universe government of the Creator Son--Jesus; [3] The attack upon the universal plan of ascendant mortal training.

[1] The Reality of the Universal Father.
     The charge was sweeping, terrible, and blasphemous. Among other things, Lucifer charged that the Universal Father did not really exist: he was a myth. He traded on reverence as ignorance. [UB 53:3:2]

[2] The Universe Government of the Creator Son--Jesus.
     Lucifer contended that the local systems should be autonomous. He protested against the right of Jesus, the Creator Son, to assume sovereignty of Nebadon in the name of a hypothetical Paradise Father and require all personalities to acknowledge allegiance to this unseen Father. He asserted that the whole plan of worship was a clever scheme to aggrandize the Paradise Sons. He was willing to acknowledge Michael as his Creator-father but not as his God and rightful ruler.
     He maintained that immortality was inherent in the system personalities, that resurrection was natural and automatic, and that all beings would live eternally except for the arbitrary and unjust acts of the executioners of the Ancients of Days. [UB 53:3:3-5]

[3] The Attack Upon the Universal Plan of Ascendant Mortal Training.
     Lucifer maintained that far too much time and energy were expended upon the scheme of so thoroughly training ascending mortals in the principles of universe administration, principles which he alleged were unethical and unsound. He challenged and condemned the entire plan of mortal ascension as sponsored by the Paradise Sons of God and supported by the Infinite Spirit. [UB 53:3:6]

     And it was with such a Declaration of Liberty that Lucifer launched his orgy of darkness and death. [UB 53:3:7]

     The Lucifer manifesto was issued on the sea of glass, in the presence of the assembled hosts of Jerusem. Satan proclaimed that worship could be accorded the universal forces--physical, intellectual, and spiritual--but that allegiance could be acknowledged only to the actual and present ruler, Lucifer, the "friend of men and angels" and the "God of liberty." [UB 53:4:1]
     Self-assertion was the battle cry of the Lucifer rebellion. He was bold and persistent in the advocacy of the "equality of mind" and "the brotherhood of intelligence." He maintained that all government should be limited to the local planets and their voluntary confederation into the local systems. He promised the Planetary Princes that they should rule the worlds as supreme executives. The Lucifer emblem was a banner of white with one red circle, in the center of which a black solid circle appeared. [UB 53:4:2] [UB 53:5:5]

     "There was war in heaven; Michael's commander and his angels fought against the dragon (Lucifer, Satan, and the apostate princes); and the dragon and his rebellious angels fought but prevailed not." This "war in heaven" was not a physical battle as such a conflict might be conceived on Urantia. In the early days of the struggle Lucifer held forth continuously in the planetary amphitheater. Gabriel conducted an unceasing exposure of the rebel sophistries from his headquarters taken up near at hand. The various personalities present on the sphere who were in doubt as to their attitude would journey back and forth between these discussions until they arrived at a final decision. [UB 53:5:6] [Revelation 12:7-9]

     This war in heaven was very terrible and very real. While displaying none of the barbarities so characteristic of physical warfare on the immature worlds, this conflict was far more deadly; material life is in jeopardy in material combat, but the war in heaven was fought in terms of life eternal. [UB 53:5:7]

     The Lucifer rebellion was system wide. Thirty-seven seceding Planetary Princes swung their world administrations largely to the side of the archrebel. Our Planetary Prince, Caligastia [the "devil"] was one of them. From the beginning of the rebellion, Caligastia advocated the cause of Lucifer on Urantia [earth].
     Huge numbers of celestial personalities in Jerusem, the system capital, joined Lucifer in his rebellion. [UB 53:7:1-8]
     Said John the Revelator: And his tail [the dragon's tail] drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them down in darkness. [Revelation 12:4]