Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 13:27:34 -0600
To: ubros@cue.com, UBtalk@utalk.org
From: "LARRYM MULLINS" <LAWRENCEOFDENVER@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: ubtalk: Answer to a perplexed believerHOW DID WE GET HERE? HOW DO WE GET OUT?
Hi Kyle:
You have significant insight into the current situation. You also evaluate the Urantia Papers in the only intelligent way to evaluate them - by their content.
You ask a key question, if I can rephrase it: How can Urantia Foundation take a position that the Urantia Papers were written by a “Forum?”
I was in the Denver courtroom Monday, Oct. 20th, for a hearing on Eric and Kristen’s case. I sat there, and was asking myself a question closely related to yours: “How did we ever get to a situation in which Urantia Foundation is suing Believers in the Urantia Papers for displaying the banner of Michael?”
I listened to their attorney drone on and on about the “trademarks” and could not help but wonder how nuts this situation is. The gallery for the defense was filled with about 40 Urantians. On the other side, the Foundation’s side was a single guy who may have come from out of town, and a reporter who is sympathetic to Kristen & Eric. In the front of the large courtroom, Kristen and Eric prepared a table of evidence showing use of the “circles” by other Urantians and hundreds of affidavits prepared in their behalf. They had spent hundreds of hours of time gathering material, knowing that the court would rather not look at these things. The court would rather not know much about the religious nature of the case. The two Foundation attorneys were a couple of young guys in dark suits who had probably never read a page of the Urantia Book. It did not seem to bother them that they were outnumbered. Their job was simply to tighten the noose a few more notches on Kristen and Eric. That’s what secular hired guns of the legal profession do. The cold and ruthless secular machine they are using to destroy the emerging Urantian religion will do the rest.
Was this not an insane situation? How did we - meaning this movement of Urantian Religionists- get here? Are we really “radicals” like the Fellowship’s inner circle has characterized us in the document of capitulation they gave to Urantia Foundation in their recent secret meeting? That question calls for some thought.
It’s like getting off a bus, and instead of being at your destination, you discover you have arrived in a crazy place, and you are involved with strange people who have strange, dark ideas and values. I wanted to jump up in the courtroom and say: “Wait a minute! THIS is not the Urantia Revelation! The Urantia Revelation is sunshine and wind, the love, energy and freedom of a benevolent universe. I don’t want to be here in this huge room watching and listening to one affront after another to my common sense. I want to be outside, I want to be sharing the mightiest religion and the greatest gift ever given to humankind. Your honor, nearly all of the Urantians in that courtroom were qualified to be teachers of this Revelation, and each of them knows hundreds of times more about those things in contention than the people opposing us, and you who are to passing judgment. The Urantian Religionists here, as much as I, also want to be outside in the light and fresh air. They want only what Kristen and Eric want - to practice their religion in peace - not to be in this place that reeks of evil, sophistry and weirdness. What are we doing here?” We must face the answer, we must face the truth at last. The answer, I am afraid, is that we have been riding on the wrong “bus.” Whatever were the intentions of those driving this bus, they have taken us to a place we do not want to be. They have engaged most of our energies - not in the Father’s work, not in our Religion - but in a struggle against one another. We Urantians seem barely able to keep from being submerged and destroyed by their dishonest statements to the world, such as “the Urantia Book is not a religious Book.” (They don’t believe that statement. People who imagine that they really believe that statement will believe the cow jumped over the moon.)
We trusted the drivers of the bus - the human leaders of this movement - to take us to a place where we could begin to do the task that the Master has clearly intrusted us to do. Now we know that only the Master knows the way to the site and situation where our revelation could unfold and dispel the darkness. Human deceivers - and deceived-deceivers - have been driving our bus for most of the forty years that it has been in motion. We must face the fact that these deceivers and deceived-deceivers have taken us to one of the worst possible places we could be - a place where we are not practicing our Religion but rather are at one another’s throats, while the world looks on with mild and bemused curiosity.
To keep us busy, these “bus drivers” have kept us “playing” revelation. And now they are becoming alarmed because great numbers of us are protesting that we do not want to be in this place anymore. We do not want to contend with each other, we don’t want to debate them, and we don’t want to play revelation anymore. It is time we were about the Father’s business.
Who has actually been driving the “bus” that took us to this place that is so far afield from light and life that we are raging at one another in darkness? It is hard to figure out who has called the shots that got us here. Even today, one trustee after another has claimed that they have no knowledge of this new deception, nor of that new litigation. This was the Third Reich excuse - “We did not know.” But aren’t they supposed to know? Who is orchestrating these actions?
Believe me Kyle, it was not always this way. Years ago, most of us believed we were headed another place. It’s true that we saw a few warning signs. But we were assured that all was well.
Let me take you back to where (in my judgment) a slight deviation was made, long, long ago. A lie was told. The intention of this lie was not evil, at least I don’t think so. But it was soon to require another lie, and then another. And on and on. Airplane pilots know that even a slight degree of corruption in course will get worse and worse unless a course-correction is made. If ignored too long, the craft will become hopelessly lost. The Urantia Papers caution us that a corrective course-change is very difficult. Recall Peter’s error, when he denied the Master three times by the fire. [1981] We are told that, “Not until the Master looked upon him; did he realize that he had failed to live up to his privileges as an ambassador to the kingdom.” Imagine that. The Master had seen, “by the light of the torches, the look of despair on the face of his former self-confident and superficially brave apostle, and he turned and looked upon Peter. Peter never forgot that look as long as he lived.” Then we are told how, by tiny and expedient steps, Peter had arrived at a destination that he would have given his life to avoid. Why?
“Having taken the first step along the path of compromise and least resistance, there was nothing apparent to Peter but to go on with the course of conduct decided upon. It requires a great and noble character, having started out wrong, to turn around and go right. All too often one’s own mind tends to justify continuance in the path of error once it is entered upon.”
Obviously the default of the Urantia Foundation is a far more complicated situation. But the beginning of falsehood, the first “shadow of a hair’s turning” was very simple.
Understand that when the Foundation was formed in 1950, it established a Declaration of Trust. On what basis was the Foundation formed at all? The exact wording from their own history [as submitted to the court in the first lawsuit] is worth noting. On page 24 of this history, a Contact Commissioner tells us:
“The Papers were published just as we received them. The Contact Commissioners had no editorial authority. Our job was limited to ‘spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.’ Before the demise of Dr. Lena Sadler (Dr. Sadler’s wife) in August, 1939, she had collected about twenty thousand dollars for the publication fund, and this was used to set type and prepare the plates for the printing of the book.”
That is clear. On the next page of the Foundation’s History we are told of the formation of the Foundation itself.
“It was these plates of the Urantia Book which constituted the basis for the formation of the Urantia Foundation. This Foundation, set up under the laws of Illinois, was completed January 11, 1950. The first board of trustees were: William E. Hales, President, William S. Sadler, Jr. [son of Dr. Sadler and a Contact Commissioner,] Vice President; Emma L. Christensen, [stenographer of the humanized text that was copied from the originals, and part of the Contact Commission], secretary; Wilfred C. Kellogg, [a Contact Commissioner] Treasurer; and Edith Cook, Assistant Secretary.”
This seems a pretty good way to begin a journey to bring a revelation to the world. The text of the original materialized papers had been faithfully copied by humans to the very best of their ability, and then the original text was destroyed [to prevent the establishment of sacred artifacts.] Next, the copied text was recopied (in the sense it was set in type,) proofed and proofed again and again. Finally, after years of reading and proofing, it was cast in metal plates, and the original copied text was destroyed. The plates were really two generations away from the original materialized text. We can assume that the text of the Urantia Papers had entered the evolutionary mainstream once the original had been destroyed, because we now know some obvious minor errors had found their way into the plates. The revelators knew this, certainly. They must have allowed these mistakes to exist, because they permitted the plates to be cast. And, beyond question, if there had been a serious mistake in the Urantia Papers, the revelators would have intervened.
Thus, the revelators evidently directed the formation of Urantia Foundation on the basis of the metal plates, with their human-caused warts and all. This makes sense. The celestial revelators certainly knew the technical process of casting plates would become obsolete as far as printing goes. But the metal plates were the unquestionable original version of the Urantia Papers, and if there was any question about the original text 500 years hence, we could go back and look at the plates. Simple enough. The five Foundation members were given complete control over the plates, which is also understandable, for the plates “constituted the basis for the formation of Urantia Foundation” - they were the basis for Urantia Foundation’s existence.
Surely, not even humans could screw this task up. Five trustees — honest and devoted — appointed for life, whose sacred, sworn responsibility was to preserve the original text inviolate. These were people smart enough to select equally noble and devoted successors. A continuous, simple process by which five crusty old trustees are to keep churning out the original text, over and over again. Clyde Bedell, who had joined the original forum in 1924, told me personally, and wrote to the effect that when the first edition of the Book was at last printed from the plates in 1955, the final message was given by the revelators: “Now you are on your own.”
In the years that followed, The Urantia Book was a slow seller. Most of the early Urantian pioneers were surprised and disappointed. Not much happened. But there was little friction in the tiny Urantia Movement. A Urantia Brotherhood was formed 1955, with the intention it would be a democratic organization to complement the self-appointed Foundation and to afford a means of social fraternity. The first 36 councilors were self-appointed, they were remnants of the esteemed “Seventy” of the original Forum. A program to establish representative democracy in the Brotherhood is revealed by the Foundation’s History. On page 26 it reads:
“The original organizers of the Brotherhood and their successors were to direct the organization for the first nine years. Thereafter, the Brotherhood would be ordered by the action of the Triennial Delegate Assembly composed of delegates from the various Urantia societies.” In other words, societies would eventually come into being and have representatives accountable to the believers who elected them, and these direct representatives would in turn direct the Brotherhood. [Democracy 101]. But alas, this democracy never happened, and the current oligarchy emerged instead. But that is another bus ride.
Back to the original “drivers” of the Revelation “bus.” The first 10,000 copies of the book sold at a reasonable rate. Nobody reviewed the book, and it was not promoted. There seemed to be good reasons to be cautious. According to the Foundation’s History, the revelators had warned the Contact Commission upon publication [page 23]:
“At long last, permission to publish the Urantia Papers was granted. The introduction to this mandate reads: ‘We regard the Urantia Book as a feature of the progressive evolution of human society. It is not germane to the spectacular episode of epochal revelation, even though it may apparently be timed to appear in the wake of one such revolution in human society. The book belongs to the era immediately to follow the conclusion of the great ideological struggle . . ’”
Ok, we get that. Keep the bus “kind of moving” and wait for Communism to fall. Back then it seemed that this might take centuries before the fall of Communism would happen. So the conservative attitude of those first drivers of the bus is understandable, and the bus was still reasonably on the right road. Dr. Sadler’s home at 533 Diversy Parkway in Chicago must have been an awesome place back then. All these wonderful minds and sincere Urantains working away and waiting for the day when this elegant revelation could be brought out of the closet. But time passed, and the great personalities began to fade and drop away. By the time the Urantia Book was ready to print a second edition, Bill Sadler, Jr. had been dead for four years, and three other Contact Commissioners were long gone. Dr. Sadler was ninety and failing, and had two more years to live. Christy, the stenographer of the Contact Commission, had now become the defacto leader. Christy was in her late seventies, but she was energetic and was assisted by a bright young man named Martin Meyers. It was in this setting that — in my judgment — a decision was made that put Urantia Foundation into default less than 17 years after it was formed. The “bus” veered a bit off-course. Incredibly, when the smoke cleared, a second edition of the Urantia Book would roll of the press that no longer contained the inviolate original text. It had been changed. Not only that, but as one edition after another was printed in later years, of its nearly 20 English language editions, the Foundation has never printed two texts exactly alike.
The simple mission to print the same text over and over again had been modified by human minds. The “sacred duty” that was “sworn” to the revelators — to confine changes to spelling, punctuation, and capitalization had been abridged. Urantia Foundation was clearly in default, although very few people knew it. In fact, one esteemed trustee would insist in later years: “They only made one change, and I made them change it back.” How did such a radical abridgement of the categorical instructions of the revelators [as stated in the Foundation’s own history] happen?
When the 1955 edition was printed, most folks thought it was perfect. After all, it was overseen by the magnificent Christy, and some very brilliant people had been proofing it and studying its pages of years. Imagine the horror of the devoted pioneers when they discovered — after the book had been printed — that there were errors in the text! The errors began to add up as folks across the country began to come across them and point them out [only to discover that Urantia Foundation was not grateful but actually annoyed at them for doing so. In later years a Urantian in Arizona was threatened that he would be sued if he kept finding mistakes and writing the Foundation about them!]
As the first edition began to sell out and a need for a new printing arose, a decision had to be made on what to do about some obvious mistakes, and possible mistakes, that were in the text of the 1955 edition.
Until recently, Urantia Foundation had a policy of silence about the changes in the text. Then, a year or so ago, they sent out a document admitting that changes had been made in the 1967 and subsequent editions. They quickly added that “fewer than ten” of the changes made in the later printings were of a nature that “might be considered more than minor corrections.” Urantia Foundation further assured the faithful flock that these “more than minor corrections” had been made “by those very individuals who were given the responsibility of preparing the original text for publication.”
But this is very confusing. First, the mortals in charge of preparing the original text told us in the Foundation’s History that “the Papers were published just as we received them. The Contact Commissioners had no editorial authority. Our job was limited to ‘spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.’” Who now gave these people permission — seventeen years later — to start making editorial changes? Second, by the 1967 second printing of The Urantia Book four of the six Contact Commissioners were dead, and Dr. Sadler was virtually out of the picture. Only Christy, the faithful stenographer was active. Did Urantia Foundation mean that Christy had made the changes?
Yes, it is clear that under Christy’s authority the changes were made. But why would Christy, the wonderful, flawless stenographer who had served Dr. Sadler faithfully since 1923, authorize such a thing? Now the story takes a bizarre and dark twist. Christy would later tell folks that the “midwayers” had instructed her to correct the second edition. But this flies in the face of logic. Christy had prepared the typed manuscript from the original text in the thirties. She helped proof the plates before they were cast sometime prior to 1950. She generally directed preparation of the 1955 printing, using these plates. If the revelators wanted an absolutely perfect book, why not let her know she had made mistakes in the million word text before the plates were cast? And why would the revelators go to such lengths to keep the identity of the “sleeping subject” a secret, and then start feeding information through a brand new personality (who would soon make sure that several people knew she was getting new celestial guidance)?
It was about the time of Christy’s new “messages” that a mysterious inner circle began to close around the eighty year-old woman. Christy was the last of the famous Contact Commission, and though she had no title or authority to bestow upon her death, people acted as though she did. The stenographer of the Contact Commission became the center of a cult. Now understand that ALL of the members of the Contact Commission were ordinary humans. But it does not take much for superstitious mortals to attribute miraculous powers to someone. And the human desire to be special, especially when virtual sainthood is being thrust upon you, is very powerful. The more ordinary one is, the more powerful is the desire to be special. Strong personalities surrounded Christy, flattering her, vying for her blessing. All Urantians who were active during the seventies knew of this developing situation, and many who were unfortunate enough to be close to the inner circle contributed to it. These developments set the stage, and new personalities were beginning to measurably affect the course of the great Urantian “bus.”
Not only that, but we readers heard of other “messages” given to the inner circle of the Foundation. Clyde Bedell was eventually outraged at this exploitation of human superstition and gullibility to control the Revelation. He wanted to evangelize the religion of Jesus, and the trustees were implying they had secret messages that warned not to do this. Now, remember Clyde’s knowledge of the Urantia Papers not only matched any living persons, he was also a member of the original Forum, and he had been around far longer than most of the new Foundation folks. Clyde eventually shocked us all when he wrote in March of 1981:
“Yes, I have heard on rare occasions the whispered gossip and maunderings: ‘The Trustees must be right. They are so set in their policies that they must be getting guidance, communications.’ Examine this idea . . . Any reader who believes it is saying in effect that the teachings of our vast and great Revelation, The Urantia Book, are already superseded by secret communications to a handful of humanly named servants of the Urantia Movement — teachings that run counter to Jesus’ and the Book’s teachings . . . After being in the Sadler Forum and its successive subsequent organizations since September, 1924, (I was then 26, and not a child) I believe The Urantia Book will never be superseded until some distant date from now, and then only by another Epochal Revelation, not by anonymous spirits secretly passing little ‘do’s and don’ts’ to fallible human Trustees.” [ “A Monograph on a Vital Issue Concerning the Urantia Book and Movement” by Clyde Bedell, pp 19-20]
In hindsight, the solution to the problem of Christy’s errors in the first printing could have been easily solved by the common academic practice of footnoting the pages and acknowledging the errors. Or, making note of any corrective alterations in an Appendix in the back. Instead, a series of expedient decisions would be made, exceeding the “shadow of a hair’s turning” and now perverting “that which is principle.” Withing three years these decisions would culminate in an order to destroy the very plates that were the “basis for the formation” of Urantia Foundation!
The first error in judgment was the disastrous decision to discount the cautions of the revelators and to physically change the plates and alter the inviolate text. The second error was to brush aside human tradition - especially as it applies to non-authors who presume to change another’s creative work: it was decided not to footnote or appendix the editorial changes that were deemed necessary. The third decision sealed the default: It was determined that the best course was to stonewall the readership. The party line became the “infallibility posture” that no changes had been made.
It must be conceded that these dramatic human decisions seemed to work - for the short term. Almost no one noticed the changes. Not even all of the trustees knew of them. Decades would go by before astonished Urantian scholars, using computers, would compare various editions of the Urantia Book and discover nearly 140 changes, including the ten or so that are “more than minor changes.” The disturbing truth must be faced: the text of the Urantia Book is no longer inviolate. The consequences of a few well-intended, but terribly short-sighted decisions are now clear. Had these alterations not been exposed, they would have led to the destruction of the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
Now, why do I write such a statement when these changes are really not significant?
Because those who argue that the text is “close enough,” are substituting the human Foundation “party line” for the superhuman directive to the Contact Commission and to the trustees. This is self-evident to any honest mind capable of distinguishing a principle from an idea. The Declaration of Trust of Urantia Foundation does not compel the trustees to “Keep the text reasonably accurate” or to “confine editorial changes that could be considered more than minor to fewer than ten.” The early pioneers were told not to take editorial latitude whatsoever, and to confine changes to “spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.”
The revelators certainly knew best when they made the categorical directive not to editorially alter the text of the Papers in any way. They surely knew that once the door of editorial latitude was opened, then the text could be changed at will by the trustees. Who, then, would be the keepers of the inviolate text? Should we trust the motivations and whims of the trustees, or any other human minds, without stringent guidelines and accountability to the Urantians whom they are supposed to serve? According to the History that a supporter of Urantia Foundation had submitted to the court, the preservation of an inviolate text was the paramount “sacred duty” of Urantia Foundation.
On May 6, 1971, unknown to us Urantians and less than two years after the death of Dr. Sadler, Urantia Foundation ordered the destruction of the very plates which were the basis of its own creation. The only editions of the original inviolate text were the ten thousand first editions. In a few decades these first editions would become virtually impossible to find, and if found, prohibitive to buy.
The foundation’s new “Good Enough” principle has become so accepted and so corrupting in the Urantia Movement that the Fellowship Edition of the Urantia Papers also contains unfootnoted changes. When a member of the Executive Committee was asked why he had changed a word to its opposite in the Fellowship text, his answer was that the revelators must have intended it as he saw it. It is precisely because the human mind is arrogant beyond belief that the revelators told us not to change the text. It is because “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” that the trustees were NOT given power to CHANGE the text in ANY editorial sense. This human idea, the “bus” of “good enough” has ruptured the trust of Urantia Foundation.
Fortunately the computer whizzes exposed the violated texts. And some day a wise group will take up the task of providing a certified, inviolate text. But is it not a shame that today we have no idea how radically any given text has been changed until we analyze it with a computer? (An exception was achieved when the window of public domain was open. Pathways printed an edition of three thousand copies of the original first printing.)
It was about the time of the death of Dr. Sadler, in 1969, that I got my first Urantia Book from Clyde Bedell. Even back then Clyde griped about the “Foundation,” and how they stifled the growth of the Urantia movement. He talked about Martin Meyers, and how nasty he was. All of which turned me off to the whole idea of a Urantia organization. I took my book, left California, and went my own way.
In 1975 I met Berkeley Elliott, who was a member of Urantia Brotherhood and who was the nucleus of the great Urantian pioneers of Oklahoma. Berkeley got me involved in the Oklahoma Urantia Society. Back then the three concentric circles were everywhere. Berkeley had pillows with circles on then, there were circle pins and bumper stickers and on and on. But I learned that Urantia Foundation was in the process of making societies sign a document that pledged them not to use the circles anymore without permission. Not only that, but the document also required that societies state that they had not used the circles freely in the past. This was clearly a lie, and the First Urantia Society of Oklahoma would not sign the agreement. The circles had been in common generic use by nearly everyone. Eventually, under great pressure, Oklahoma reluctantly signed. (Berkeley told me personally that at a meeting in Chicago Martin Meyers grabbed her arm with such force that it was painful and virtually screamed at her that she was the most stubborn and blind woman he had ever known.) This whole “circles” episode was a turn-off to me. I commented to Berkeley that Urantians as an organization were “just as bad” as any other religious group I had seen over the years. But I really enjoyed Oklahoma Urantians.
I met Christy and Martin at Berkeley’s house in 1976. I had written a prose poem about the life of Jesus, based upon the Urantia Papers and titled “Jesus: God & Man.” Christy and Martin were in Oklahoma to advise me as to whether I could publish this long poem in book form. Out of politeness I listened to Martin and Christy’s cautions about the copyright, but as far as I was concerned, I was going to print my work. Also, I knew that Bill Sadler, Jr. had written his two great books on the Master Universe, clearly in “violation” of the copyrights. These were published by the Oklahoma Society and were being sold, and are being sold to this day. When Martin was questioned about this sacred cow, he was startled. He had no answer. I finally told Christy and Martin that I was going to publish my book and it would be to their advantage to give me permission. They did not like this, and Berkeley almost fainted, but eventually I got my way.
I had the creepy feeling after the meeting that these people did not have anything to do with the true revelation. They were doing something else. I did not know they were driving the bus. And I did not know I was riding on the bus, whether I liked it or not.
By the time I had met Christy and Martin the Foundation’s thrust had shifted away from protecting an inviolate TEXT, to protecting and prolonging Urantia Foundation’s COPYRIGHT.
And, by this time, the Urantia movement was clearly divided into two camps. One camp wanted to evangelize and spread the book. The other sincerely believed the book was for another time. Martin Meyers had made a speech at a Urantia Conference in 1973: UNITY NOT UNIFORMITY. In it, he made mention of mysterious “mandates” that the revelators had given Urantia Foundation. (Note that the mandate to publish the book contained what Dr. Sadler called “suggestions.” These suggestions became Martin Meyers infamous “mandates.”) For the first time, Urantia Foundation’s policy of “slow growth” became an official doctrine. By 1977, Urantia Foundation also launched a policy of litigation to control over-zealous believers: 1977 Urantia Foundation vs. King [an ordinary reader used the word “Urantia” in a pamphlet and quoted from the Papers], /1977 - Urantia Foundation vs. Burton, a long time believer, for about the same thing, /1982 Urantia Foundation vs. Urantia Society of Houston for using the three concentric circles. /1987 Urantia Foundation vs. CUBS, an out-of-court agreement is reached over circles. Cubs, fiercely defiant and alone, is somehow allowed to continue to use them.
In 1982 Christy died at the age of 92. I was barely aware of the extravagant service given for her in Chicago, and the praise heaped upon her at 533 Diversy. In 1983 the copyright was quietly renewed, by means of what we now know are false statements. No one knew, but I don’t think most of us Urantians cared much. We believed the Foundation was watching over the inviolate text. We had no idea there was no longer any inviolate text. The concentric circles did not seem so important. Most of us went along with our lives. In 1983 there was an upheaval and a World War III scare as the power politics continued. I was surprised in 1984 when I was elected to the Urantia Brotherhood General Council. There was constant turmoil between Urantia Brotherhood and Urantia Foundation, and finally a break come in 1989.
I was really glad to get out of the Fellowship when my nine-year hitch was over. I met some good people, but it seemed a waste of time. Whatever it was the Fellowship was doing was not about the Revelation as I understood it. And I learned from hard and bitter experience that the inner circle of the Fellowship ran everything and was never going to allow the formation of an authentic democratic organization. I was also bothered that the Council flatly refused to pass a resolution supporting Kristen. Even my proposal for such a resolution mysteriously disappeared from the minutes. So for me, getting out of the General Council was an excitement almost equal to getting a final discharge out of the army.
I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the politics until 1991, when Kristen was sued for giving out free disks with indexes on them. Most Urantians had them because they were the only comprehensive index available. It was not so much the lawsuit that concerned me then. It was the Special Report Urantia Foundation sent me and several thousand others that made me wonder what kind of people were driving the bus. I mean, the folks I met in the Brotherhood (now the Fellowship) were just ordinary people who believed in the Urantia Papers. I assumed the Trustees were also just ordinary people, just as Martin and Christy had struck me. However, the way Kristen was treated in court indicated that these were brutal, ruthless people. And the “Special Report” proved to me that they were feeding the readership lies. I was faced with the inescapable conclusion that brutal, ruthless people who print lies were driving the “bus.” As I looked into it further, I discovered Urantia Foundation had changed the text of the Urantia Book two decades ago. I had given money to the Foundation in good faith and they had defaulted.
When I openly wrote about this, I officially became one of the “radicals.” The laundry list of Foundation misfeasance has been written about over and over again. But one instance is worth mentioning here. Urantia Foundation was never mandated to register and protect the circles. It was not in their Declaration of Trust to do so. Yet on page one of their “Special Report to Reader’s of the Urantia Book,” published in April of 1990, they state their “mission” is “1 . . .Disseminate the teachings . . .2. Protect the text of The Urantia Book . . . 3. To protect the unique identity of URANTIA foundation . . . by establishing and maintaining its trade name and it trademarks . . . the word Urantia and the Concentric Circles symbol.” In a rebuttal of this, Thomas Kendall, a trustee of Urantia Foundation from 1963 to 1983; and President of Urantia Foundation from 1973 to 1983 wrote: “The first two items are the ONLY OBJECTS mandated by the Revelatory Commission for the Declaration of Trust.” [Response to Foundations’s Special Report, Thomas A. Kendall and Carolyn B. Kendall, June 21, 1990.]
When Urantia Foundation most recently sued Eric and joined Kristen, it was for using the Banner of Michael, the three concentric circles, on an internet site. I believe they started this, as well as the original suit, to prevent the emergence of the “new and everlasting religion” of Jesus [see page 1467]. Why? The Foundation Trustees believe with all their hearts that it is not yet time for this religion. They believe the world is not yet safe for the religion of Jesus. They believe that a Urantia religious movement would soon be out of control. They believe people would do all kinds of embarrassing things, and the Revelation would be destroyed. To prevent this, they devised a means to control the Revelation with secular copyright. They make changes so that when the final copyright runs out, they can re-copyright the Book on the basis that they have made so many changes. They use secular trademarks to punish Urantians who try to express their religious beliefs by means of the Banner of Michael. A sincere proprietorship seems to drive our would-be leaders. A high Fellowship officer who supports Urantia Foundation told me and several others in a meeting that one of the trustees confided to him that her grandfather and her father are watching from the mansion worlds, and she had to keep the Urantia “bus” on its present course.
SO, HERE WE ARE So Kyle, that’s it. Two factions engaged in fighting each other rather than propagating the revelation.
Now, even in writing this to you, I am taking time from what I would rather be doing. I would rather be working on my book. I want to put this book into the mainstream to tell the world about the new and everlasting religion of Jesus, and how it interfaces with the highest knowledge of psychology, current religious ideas, the most advanced science including quantum physics, and the most enlightened philosophy. My book will tell about my personal experience with the Urantia Papers, and how they changed my life. I believe my book is much more important than writing about the mistakes of unfortunate people, most of whom did the best they could. I should be using every spare minute of time to go into the schools and talk to the young people about how drugs destroyed my thirteen year-old daughter and how this tragedy brought me to God.
And I am not unique in this desire to be doing something else. I am just one of those who want to bring personal religious experience to the world under the banner of Michael, and to propagate his matchless teachings to the world. “Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood. / “ I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I have called you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of the realization of the possibility of making for yourselves the greatest discovery possible for the human soul to make--the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself, and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience.” [1731] / “Jesus never tired of telling them that the kingdom of heaven was their personal experience of realizing the higher qualities of spiritual living; that these realities of the spirit experience are progressively translated to new and higher levels of divine certainty and eternal grandeur.” [1860] /” Have I not all this time taught you that your connection with the kingdom is spiritual and individual, wholly a matter of personal experience in the spirit by the faith-realization that you are a son of God? . . . That you have once accepted sonship in the heavenly kingdom will not save you in the face of the knowing and persistent rejection of those truths which have to do with the progressive spiritual fruit-bearing of the sons of God in the flesh. You who have been with me in the Father's business on earth can even now desert the kingdom if you find that you love not the way of the Father's service for mankind.” [1916]
I know that Kristen and Eric could do marvelous things for this revelation if they did not have to spend thousands of hours reading legal briefs and fighting for survival. In Boulder, there are dozens of people who will respond to the emerging religious movement and who have great talents as teachers, as workers with children, as writers, artists, and so much more. But we are all spending our time either trying to help Kristen and Eric out of this secular insanity or avoiding the secular struggle. On the other side, there are supremely talented people, gifted people who want to use their gift to help the world and bring more truth, beauty and light to it. They also are wasting their time, fighting us “radicals.”
HOW DO WE FIND OUR WAY? Having written all of this, what is the answer? Now that we are hopelessly lost, how do we find our way back? So, if we all “get off” of the present “bus,” then what? Our experience with AA has taught me and you that of ourselves we can do nothing. By now we know there are no leaders in this movement who can blaze the way. Not only that, our problem is compounded because we cannot leave Kristen and Eric here alone, to be destroyed.
There is a battle right here to finish, but to win this battle we must also board a new bus and look to a new driver. Those of us who want a religion see this religion - in whatever various forms of expression - as the unifying bus that will transcend all error and heal all mistakes. And we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only driver capable of lifting us out of our current disaster.
We as a movement have, in the vernacular of AA, “hit bottom.” We seem to have forgotten that we are, at best, only cosmic children. It’s time to turn to the Highest Power in the Universe, for we seem to have also forgotten that we - ALL of us - are his children. It is time for all of us, ALL of us, to bend our knees before God.
Dear God, help us. We plead that we have lost control of this revelation. We have followed befuddled leaders, we have avoided personal responsibility, and we are lost in a strange and terrible place. Only you can solve this problem. Help us to individually open our hearts to the guidance of the Spirit of Truth. Father, you delegated to Michael an incredible task four billion years ago. He and the Mother Spirit set this immense task into motion. Then, as Jesus, Michael walked among us and proved to us that we can carry our part of the task forward, regardless of the situations we face and regardless of our human condition. Jesus of Nazareth lay down his life to show us that to carry this task forward, even your Son would suffer disaster at the hands of darkened, materialistic minds. Even he, to serve his children, would be humiliated by those who control our planet and “do not know what they do.” Then Michael sent the Spirit of Truth to us so that Jesus could live again through his children, and so the world could see him living his teachings once more.
Finally, the Master has given us our beloved Urantia Revelation, a dissertation that tells of this wondrous task he undertook, and now delegates this task to us Believers to complete. Alone, we are not capable of even thinking of completing such a mission. We also, of ourselves, have insufficient wisdom, inadequate strength, and virtually no ability to forgive one another and to heal the pain we have inflicted. But with you, anything, absolutely anything is possible.
We are tired of fighting each other, Father. We no longer want to be in this awful place. Lead us home. Dear God, lead your children home.