HOW LARGE IS ORVONTON, REALLY?

(and other questions)
By Norm Du Val, ARS & SC
 

Many Urantians have wondered and speculated about the true size of our superuniverse, the grand universe, and the master universe, especially since the Urantia Papers and science do not seem to be in very good agreement concerning the makeup of the cosmos. And it may be as the Urantia Papers state, -that people are discovering "errors on the face of the associated cosmologies" in the Papers. So, how large is Orvonton, and do we have to change the Papers in order to make them fit the science du jour, or worse, the science of yesterday?

The Urantia Papers say that Orvonton will have one trillion inhabitable planets. They also say that the Milky Way Galaxy is the nucleus of Orvonton. I never thought that "nucleus" in this case meant that our galaxy was a small part, like say a one thousandth part of Orvonton, but rather that it was the main body, making up perhaps 70, 80 or even 90% of the Superuniverse. Granted, in the modern view of the astronomical universe, with superclusters of thousands of galaxies, to think that our average sized galaxy and only six more like it comprise the "seven Superuniverses" which surround another single galactic entity, Havona, almost seems quaint. The Grand Universe would then be quite small in the scheme of things. Could the Grand Universe be this small?

Until fairly recently it was popular scientific knowledge that there were some 100 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. At that rate it would be practically impossible for the Milky Way to have more than a fraction of Orvonton's stated one trillion inhabitable planets. Each star in the galaxy would have to have an average of 10 inhabitable planets. That would be highly unlikely. At best, one could only expect to have an inhabitable planet per every two stars, this ratio being derived from page 458 where the Urantia Papers say that Satania has two thousand blazing suns and will have about 1,000 inhabitable planets. But we know from the Papers that on the scale of the Superuniverse of Orvonton, a ratio of 10 stars per inhabitable planet is the correct number.

One way to solve the problem involves reaching far out into space to include other large galaxies like the Milky Way in order to make up the necessary stars to achieve one trillion inhabitable planets. Furthermore, some say that many or most of the supposed 100 billion stars in the Milky Way are not viable candidates for having planetary families suitable for life. By one account, 98% of the stars would be eliminated as being "too small or too cool" to support planetary systems and life. That would leave only 2 billion stars available and would yield about one billion inhabitable planets. This number is 1/1,000 of the number needed for the Orvonton of the Urantia Papers , so one would have to take in approximately 1,000 more Milky Way class galaxies in order to get the right numbers.

Another problem that makes matters worse is that while it has been widely stated that the Milky Way has 100 billion stars, the Urantia Papers say that Orvonton has ten trillion stars, thus the Milky Way could only be one-one hundredth of Orvonton. And consider that when you have to reach out into space 50 million or 500 million light years to acquire dozens or a thousand more galaxies in order to make up one trillion planets and ten trillion stars under these assumptions, you are saying that the Urantia Papers are wrong when they claim a radius of 250 thousand light years for Orvonton. This is nothing new. Many in the movement automatically give the benefit of the doubt to current science. I like to go with the Urantia Papers first, and let science find its own way in its own time. The Urantia Papers are not going to change, but I know that science will.

It would seem then that nothing short of a miracle could reconcile this problem of science versus the Urantia Papers, but after researching the subject, and armed with NEW SCIENCE, I am more sure than ever that the smaller model of Orvonton is the correct one.

Let's begin with some basic and related questions.

 How large is the Milky Way?

Time was when the Milky Way was considered to be about 80,000 light years in diameter. More recently the figure of 100,000 light years has been used. But new studies have shown that the Milky Way has an extensive and massive halo of stars around it and now the figure of 300,000 light years is being mentioned as an appropriate size for our galaxy. In addition, there are a number of dwarf galaxies that seem to be in orbit around the Milky Way. If these are considered to be a part of the Milky Way, the size of the galaxy is very close to 500,000 light years in diameter. This figure is remarkably the same one that the Urantia Papers use as the size for Orvonton. At the bottom of page 359 and the top of page 360, it says,

"From the outermost system of inhabited worlds to the center of the Superuniverse is a trifle less than two hundred and fifty thousand light-years."

If 250,000 is the radius, then 500,000 must be the diameter.

 How many stars are in our Milky Way Galaxy?

This is an important question. Many older sources and some newer give the figure that is still widely cited of 100 billion stars, but this figure is out of date. On page 172 the Urantia Papers say,

"The Superuniverse of Orvonton is illuminated and warmed by more than ten trillion blazing suns. These suns are the stars of your observable astronomic system. More than two trillion are too distant and too small ever to be seen from Urantia."

Wow, ten trillion suns! So how are we going to get from 100 billion to ten trillion? The answer is - gradually.

Note too something very important in the paragraph above from the Urantia Papers. Of the ten trillion blazing suns, it says that two trillion are too small ever to be seen from Urantia. Even though these suns are small, the Urantia Papers validate these small suns as legitimate, viable, blazing suns. Also, for the 1935 era, when the Papers say that "These suns are the stars of your observable astronomic system, it is saying that these stars are part of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way was the observable astronomic system for all practicable purposes in 1935. In other words, The Urantia Papers are saying that there are 10 trillion suns in and around the close neighborhood of the Milky Way.

 Of all the stars in our galaxy, how many would we have to discard as being too small or too cool to support planets and life, so that we can arrive at an accurate "star per inhabitable planet ratio"?

The answer is relatively few. For the most part, stars are stars. The smaller, "cooler" stars are called red dwarfs, but these are real stars and should not be confused with other types of "dwarf" stars. It is true that astronomy says that the majority of stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs, but astronomy does not say they are too small or cool to support planetary systems or life. These stars are spectral class M stars. As noted above, the Urantia Papers support them as "blazing suns."

The smallest of the M class stars are at least 100 times more massive than Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, and most are between 200 and 600 times as large as Jupiter, which means that they are 20 to 60 % of the mass of the Sun, and they burn at surface temperatures of about 3,500 degrees Kelvin. They have plenty of gravity and heat and light to hold and sustain planetary systems and planetary life, and they are long lived stars. Astronomer Carl Sagan likes them too. In talking about the stars in the galaxy, he has this to say from his book "Cosmos:"

"Very few of these stars are of the massive short-lived variety that squander their reserves of thermonuclear fuel. The great majority have lifetimes of billions or more years in which they are shining stably, providing a suitable energy source for the origin and evolution of life on nearby planets."

The "great majority" to which Carl Sagan refers are the class M stars which in fact do make up the bulk of the stars in the galaxy. The Urantia Papers seem to call all normal stars "blazing or brilliant" if the nuclear fires have been ignited. Spectral class M stars are in fact blazing stars, blazing with nuclear fusion just the same as our star. They are simply not as massive or as hot. The Encyclopedia Britannica says,

"The most common stars and those that contribute the most to the local stellar mass density are the dwarf M stars..."

Class M stars are main sequence, bona-fide, fire breathing, blazing stars.

On Page 458 of the Urantia Papers it says,

"Of the thirty suns nearest yours, only three are brighter."

Of the twenty-seven that are not as bright as our sun, most are probably class M stars. We cannot eliminate these stars from the life equation. We can eliminate white dwarfs, black dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, Red Giants, stars too close to the galactic nucleus, stars embedded in nebulosity and dust clouds, and perhaps some others, but all of these together are a small percentage of the total.

If Satania has 2000 blazing suns and will have 1,000 inhabitable planets, or two to one, and if the larger superuniverse scale ratio is ten stars per inhabitable planet, we can assume that the less stellar crowded places in the galaxy are probably much more productive of inhabitable planets than the more dense regions. With a 10:1 ratio and 100 billion stars The Milky Way then could easily have 10 billion inhabitable planets. This is still far short of the number needed to avoid having to reach out to the Virgo Supercluster for enough galaxies and stars with one trillion inhabitable planets to comprise Orvonton as per the Urantia Papers. Somehow we need a magic hat trick here, a miracle, or some NEW SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION, or else the Urantia Papers' figure of an Orvonton radius of 250,000 light years must be wrong.

 What's the difference between the term "stars" that science uses, and "blazing stars," "blazing suns" and "brilliant suns," as used in the Urantia Papers?

There is no difference. They are all the same.

 Would most or all of the inhabited worlds have temperature, air pressure and gravity conditions close to those of the Earth, and would the type of life be similar to ours?

No. A good reading of Paper 49, THE INHABITED WORLDS will quickly dispel any notion that the inhabited worlds are similar or that the inhabitants are similar from one world to another, except that they are thinking bipeds. As the Urantia Papers note for the non-breathers, many have no air or air pressure at all. They live in a vacuum. Likewise for temperature, on airless worlds the surface temperatures would be very extreme, high and low. On page 563 the Urantia Papers say,

"On the non-breathing worlds the advanced races must do much to protect themselves from meteor damage by making electrical installations which operate to consume or shunt the meteors. Great danger confronts them when they venture beyond these protected zones. These worlds are also subject to disastrous electrical storms of a nature unknown on Urantia. During such times of tremendous energy fluctuation the inhabitants must take refuge in their special structures of protective insulation."

On Page 564 it says,

"Life on the worlds of the non-breathers is radically different from what it is on Urantia. The non-breathers do not eat food or drink water as do the Urantia races. The reactions of the nervous system, the heat-regulating mechanism, and the metabolism of these specialized peoples are radically different from such functions of Urantia mortals. Almost every act of living, aside from reproduction, differs, and even the methods of procreation are somewhat different."

In an infinite universe, while there will be many worlds more or less like ours, it seems that conditions on many other inhabited worlds will not resemble anything like what we have on Earth, according to the Urantia Papers. Page 560 lists the various types of life that need to be created in response to differing planetary conditions. Since all space bodies have gravity, that would seem to be the only condition that would be similar on all worlds, and even then the Urantia Papers say on Page 562 that,

"Some of the larger worlds are peopled with beings who are only about two and one-half feet in height. Mortal stature ranges from here on up through the average heights on the average-sized planets to around ten feet on the smaller inhabited spheres."

The beings are two and one half feet tall on the one hand and ten feet tall on the other hand due to the forces of gravity, both much stronger and much weaker than we have on Earth.

On page 564 it says,

"There are great differences between the mortals of the different worlds, even among those belonging to the same intellectual and physical types, but all mortals of will dignity are erect animals, bipeds."

 How many inhabited planets are in our own solar system?

Our star has at least one inhabited world, and it probably has two. Talking about a world of non-breathers, on page 564 the Urantia Papers say:

"You would be more than interested in the planetary conduct of this type of mortal because such a race of beings inhabits a sphere in close proximity to Urantia."

It is very unlikely that "close proximity" means Alpha Centauri, 4.5 light years away. It must mean in our solar system. There are not many worlds in our solar system which would qualify as a non-breather world, but two come to mind that are large enough, have solid surfaces, and are airless. Our Moon, and Jupiter's moon of Ganymede are the most likely places. Io is a sulfuric hellhole, Europa is watery world covered with ice. The surface of Callisto is also icy. Saturn's Titan and Neptune's Triton have atmospheres and they are too far from the warming rays of the sun. The planet Mercury also has some serious drawbacks, though a case could be made for it to be a candidate for the non-breather world.

We can probably eliminate our Moon. It's close, we've studied it telescopically for decades, and we've been there. It would be hard for us not to have noticed intelligent life activity if it was there. That leaves Ganymede. One Urantian, Joe Pope, made a strong case for Ganymede as the home of the other mortal race of non-breathers in our solar system. Ganymede is not be the size of Urantia, but the Papers don't say an inhabited world or moon has to be this big, just that if they are the size of Urantia, they are almost ideal. On Page 559 it says,

"In several of the physical systems of Satania the planets revolving around the central sun are too large for habitation, their great mass occasioning oppressive gravity. Many of these enormous spheres have satellites, sometimes a half dozen or more, and these moons are often in size very near that of Urantia, so that they are almost ideal for habitation."

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system.

 What about the regions toward the central galactic bulge, would life be possible there?

Yes. Even in the denser regions of the galaxy except for around the very nucleus, life would be possible. If the stars were only one light year or less apart, there would be plenty of room. Satania is not in what we might consider the more dense regions, but the Urantia Papers give us an idea of what it might be like nearer to the galactic core. On Page 559 the Urantia Papers say,

"The oldest inhabited world of Satania, world number one, is Anova, one of the forty-four satellites revolving around an enormous dark planet but exposed to the differential light of three neighboring suns."

Imagine, three nearby stars in the sky! Anyone who has seen the movie "Contact" has an idea of what it might be like as Jodie Foster's character arrives at the first stellar way station. This world, Anova, with forty-three companions, revolves about a much larger planet, probably similar to the Ganymede-Jupiter system. More importantly, there are three suns in Anova's sky, apparently all close enough to contribute to the lighting and heating of the planet. How far away could these stars be from Anova and still be beneficial? A tenth light year? One hundredth of a light year? At one hundredth of a light year, a star would be 16 times the distance from our sun to Pluto. This triple star system probably has more than one inhabited planet. Being a very old system, it may even be the one system in Satania that has four peopled planets. (Page 359) (Incidentally, the Centauri system, our closest stellar neighbor is also a triple star system and could very well be the home system of Anova.)

 But what about the 100 billion figure commonly used as the number of stars in the Milky Way, -is it right?

No, not only is it not right, it is "off" as far as up-to-date science is concerned by a factor of 10 to 20 times, possibly more. The 100 billion figure arose in the 1960s but persisted in new books and articles into the 1990s and is sometimes still mentioned. However, I've seen the figure of 200 billion stars for the Milky Way as long ago as 1975. In a book called "Amazing Universe", a National Geographic Society book by Herbert Friedman, it says,

"Our sun is only one of about 200 billion stars in the Milky Way."

Later, in a an attempt to scale the universe down so that the sun would be size of a pinhead and our solar system would fit inside a living room, it says,

"The Milky Way would be a disk...dotted with 200 billion stars."

Then, in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, copyright 1980, he says,

"We know N*, the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, fairly well, by careful counts of stars in small but representative regions of the sky. It is a few hundred billion; some recent estimates place it at 4 X 1011."

In other places in his book he uses the actual figure of 400 billion. 400 billion suns! Now we are starting to get into some serious numbers. Another few hundred billion here and there and we'll be on our way. Of those 400 billion stars, at a star to inhabited planet ratio of 10:1, there should now be 40 billion inhabitable planets, almost 4% of a trillion and 4% of the amount needed to describe a much smaller Orvonton with a trillion inhabitable planets.

It's still not enough -yet. But wait! There's more.

In the January 1995 Sky & Telescope magazine, in an article called, "The Galaxy We Call Home" it says,

"The total mass of our galaxy is surprisingly large, and it gets larger as you measure it farther away from the galactic center. For the part of the galaxy closer to the center than we are, rotation speeds of gas clouds imply a mass of about 100 billion Suns. But make your measurements farther out, using the motions of stars in the halo or the interaction of the whole galaxy with Andromeda and other neighbors, and you get more like 1,000 billion Suns."

Imagine that, 1,000 billion, or one trillion suns in the Milky Way. Now it depends on where you take your measurements. This new information took me a bit by surprise and it may do the same to you if you are not familiar with it. At first I thought it must be a mistake, but it isn't. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia, 1992, it says,

"The total mass of the Galaxy, which had seemed reasonably well established during the 1960s, has become a matter of considerable uncertainty."... "and so all that can be said is that the mass is perhaps five or 10 times larger than thought earlier. That is to say, the mass, including the dark matter, must be about 1,000,000,000,000 times the mass of the Sun, with considerable uncertainty."

"Considerable uncertainty," indeed!

So science has gone from 100 million stars in the 1960s, and which the Encyclopedia Britannica says "had seemed reasonably well established," to a galaxy with 1 trillion times the mass of our local star, the Sun. That's not just the same as 1 trillion suns like our star, because most of the stars are smaller red dwarfs, 20-60% of the size of the Sun. So the number of stars could easily be 2-5 times more than 1 trillion.

This topical section in the Britannica closes with these words. (Diehard science people may want to close their eyes here.)

"In the meantime it must be said that astronomy does not know what makes up much of the universe." [Encyclopedia Britannica - 1992]

And there's still more!

Amazingly, there is corroborating new scientific information from the Grolier CD-ROM encyclopedia. (Copied directly from the CD.) It says:

"The total mass of the Galaxy can be measured by studying the motions of individual stars and clouds of hydrogen gas in different parts of the galaxy and by applying CELESTIAL MECHANICS to calculate a total mass that will account for the observed motions. The mass can also be determined from the motions of the Galaxy's small satellite galaxies, especially the nearby dwarf elliptical galaxies, and globular clusters. Recent computations by both methods agree that the Galaxy's mass is possibly 1,000 to 2,000 billion times the mass of the Sun. As the Sun's mass is about average for a star in the Galaxy, the total number of stars must also be of this order."

1,000 to 2,000 billion solar masses is one to two trillion solar masses! While "solar masses" are not necessarily stars, according to the encyclopedia the total number of stars in the Milky Way must also be of the same order. Let's now use this new figure of two trillion solar masses. Again, because many stars are smaller than our Sun a fixed amount of mass translates into more stars if they are smaller. Two trillion solar masses could equal four or five trillion stars, halfway to the 10 trillion stars the Urantia Papers mention for Orvonton. Instead of having to bend the Papers to meet science, we simply wait patiently for the science to change. And change it does.

We have now gone from 100 billion stars in the galaxy in the 1960s all the way to possibly two trillion or more stars today. Isn't science wonderful! And at any given time, whether now or then, many scientists and astronomers will give you their numbers with absolute assurance that they are correct.

As one can see, the number of stars has been rising steadily for 25 years or more. We now have a plausible figure that is 20 times what it was in the days of "100 billion stars". But has the number of real stars changed? No. Only the science has changed. One thing you can say about science, over the years, concerning the estimates of the number of stars in the Milky Way, it has always erred on the conservative side. This is clearly shown by the fact that the numbers just keep getting larger.

Using all this new data, if we now use the maximum current figure of two trillion solar masses in the Milky Way, and if that equivalates into 4-5 trillion stars considering that many are much smaller than our Sun, we easily come to a figure of a half trillion inhabitable planets if there are 10 stars per such planet. That's half the figure given in the Papers, and without leaving the galactic neighborhood.

We can assume at this point that the scientific estimates for the number of stars in the Milky Way are going to continue rising until they approach the true number of stars, as science continues to do its thing, and as more and better ways of measuring the mass of our galaxy are brought to bear, even to the point of approaching ten trillion stars as per the Urantia Papers statement about Orvonton. Check back in ten years. We are in the ballpark, and moving in the right direction. This fits extremely well with the idea that the Milky Way is the nucleus of Orvonton. On page 167 it says,

"The vast Milky Way starry system represents the central nucleus of Orvonton, being largely beyond the borders of your 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 watchlike, elongated-circular grouping of about one seventh of the inhabited evolutionary universes.

The Milky Way could hardly be the nucleus of Orvonton if Orvonton included the Virgo Supercluster as some suggest. The Milky Way would be as a lost grain of sand in an Orvonton that large.

Adding to the mass of the Milky Way proper, current science says that there are also about 150 or more globular star clusters in the galactic halo. Concerning globular clusters, on page 170 the Urantia Papers say virtually the same thing regarding Orvonton that science already knows about the Milky Way Galaxy.

"The globular type of star clusters predominates near the outer margins of Orvonton."

That nails it, I think, but two other statements in the Papers also support the Milky Way as the "main item" in Orvonton. On page 167 it says,

"Practically all of the starry realms visible to the naked eye on Urantia belong to the seventh section of the grand universe, the Superuniverse of Orvonton."

And on page 130 the Urantia Papers say,

"...the unaided human eye can see only two or three nebulae outside the borders of the Superuniverse of Orvonton...

Identical statements can be made about the Milky Way Galaxy. With the exception of the Andromeda galaxy and the two Magellanic star clouds, everything you can see in the night sky with the naked eye is within the Milky Way Galaxy.

And yet another statement that points to the Milky Way as being the core and the largest component of Orvonton is this one from page 458,

"The most recent of the major cosmic eruptions in Orvonton was the extraordinary double star explosion, the light of which reached Urantia in A. D. 1572. This conflagration was so intense that the explosion was clearly visible in broad daylight."

This supernova was of course the one seen by Tycho Brahe on November 11, 1572. It has been pinpointed by astronomers as being in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way, some 15,000 light years distant, not in some galaxy far off in outer space.

In view of all this compelling data, it should be clear now that an area of space about 500 thousand light years in diameter and centered on the Milky Way Galaxy is in fact Orvonton.

 How large is our local system of Satania?

On page 359, the Urantia Papers say that,

"Satania is not a uniform physical system, a single astronomic unit or organization,..."

But if it was a uniform physical system, more specifically if it was a cube of space, and assuming 2,000 stars, and an average of four light years between stars in our area of the galaxy, it would be a cube about 50 light years on each edge.

 How far away is the Andromeda Galaxy? Don't the Urantia Papers say that the distance is about one million light years?

It is hard to be sure exactly how far away it is. Science seems to think it is about 2.2 million light years at this time. It used to think it was about one million light years away and 2.5 million light years has been science's high guess. But here is what the Encyclopedia Britannica has to say about distance measurements to external galaxies,

"Distance determinations for the nearest galaxies still remain uncertain by as much as 30 percent, and the scale of distances beyond the local group of galaxies is even more unsure, with an uncertainty of at least a factor of two."

Contrary to popular opinion, the Urantia Papers do not say that the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy is about one million light years. The Urantia Papers say that the light from those stars took almost one million years to get here. (Page 170) Perhaps it's all the same, but perhaps it's not.

 What is the Virgo Supercluster, The Great Wall, and other deep space large scale universe structures that astronomy has discovered?

They are almost certainly manifestations of the outer space zones as mentioned in the Urantia Papers. On page 130, speaking from a 1935 reference, it says,

"In the not-distant future, new telescopes will reveal to the wondering gaze of Urantian astronomers no less than 375 million new galaxies in the remote stretches of outer space."

And on page 125,

"You may visualize the first outer space level, where untold universes are now in process of formation, as a vast procession of galaxies swinging around Paradise, bounded above and below by the midspace zones of quiescence and bounded on the inner and outer margins by relatively quiet space zones."

Further, on page 130, the Urantia Papers say, (again, from 1935 reference point) "Although the unaided human eye can see only two or three nebulae outside the borders of the Superuniverse of Orvonton, your telescopes literally reveal millions upon millions of these physical universes in process of formation. Most of the starry realms visually exposed to the search of your present-day telescopes are in Orvonton, but with photographic technique the larger telescopes penetrate far beyond the borders of the grand universe into the domains of outer space, where untold universes are in process of organization. And there are yet other millions of universes beyond the range of your present instruments."

If the Virgo Supercluster and other features of deep space that we can see now with our telescopes were a part of Orvonton or even the Grand Universe, the Papers would have said so right there.

 What about the so-called "Great Attractor", what is it and are we heading toward it?

The Great Attractor is also probably part of the outer space zones, its motion causing it to appear as if we are heading in its direction when in fact we are not. On page 134 the Urantia Papers talk about such a situation.

"But the greatest of all such distortions arises because the vast universes of outer space in the realms next to the domains of the seven Superuniverses seem to be revolving in a direction opposite to that of the grand universe. That is, these myriads of nebulae and their accompanying suns and spheres are at the present time revolving clockwise about the central creation. The seven Superuniverses revolve about Paradise in a counterclockwise direction. It appears that the second outer universe of galaxies, like the seven Superuniverses, revolves counter-clockwise about Paradise. And the astronomic observers of Uversa think they detect evidence of revolutionary movements in a third outer belt of far-distant space which are beginning to exhibit directional tendencies of a clockwise nature."

 What are quasars?

"Quasars are the most luminous known objects in the universe, some of them having luminosities more than thousands of times greater than that of the Galaxy. Some quasars are markedly and erratically variable in their light in a period of minutes. Their diameters must therefore be less than 100 light-minutes across, or about the size of the solar system. Thus hundreds to thousands of times the luminosity of the entire Galaxy is emitted from a volume 10 to the 17th power smaller than that of the Galaxy--an incredible outpouring of energy." [Grolier Encyclopedia.]

Here is what the Urantia Papers have to say about quasars on page 129,

"Far out in space, at an enormous distance from the seven inhabited Superuniverses, there are assembling vast and unbelievably stupendous circuits of force and materializing energies."

And on page 130,

"Still greater activities are taking place beyond these regions, for the Uversa physicists have detected early evidence of force manifestations more than fifty million light-years beyond the outermost ranges of the phenomena in the first outer space level. These activities undoubtedly presage the organization of the material creations of the second outer space level of the master universe."

It's interesting that the Grolier Encyclopedia phrase, "an incredible outpouring of energy", and the Urantia Papers' phrase, "unbelievably stupendous circuits of force and materializing energies," are so similar.

Finally, from page 131 of the Urantia Papers, the Revelators tell us,

"We can observe its immensity, we can discern its extent and sense its majestic dimensions, but otherwise we know little more about these realms than do the astronomers of Urantia."

Amen.

Norm Du Val
ndonurantia@gmail.com

Revised 04-08-2002