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Episode 06: Luke Storey - The Life Stylist This episode of the podast features an all new interview with Luke Storey; podcaster, human optimization expert and wellness coach. We dive into many layers of mutual intersections around addiction, recovery, psychedelics and reinvention. Luke's story and approach to using psychedelics as a wisdom tool and growth agent is one worth paying attention too. Also, Zach Leary's new book 'Your Extraordinary Mind: Psychedelics in the 21st Century and How to Use Them' is out now and available whereever books are sold! NOTE - The Psychedelics Then and Now Podcast is also available on YouTube @zachleary108 About Luke Storey Luke experienced significant neglect and abuse as a young child. In his pre-teen years, he turned to drugs and crime to escape his emotional turmoil. After a burglary arrest at 14, he was sentenced to a two-year wilderness reform school for troubled teens. Unaided by this intervention, Luke soon returned to addiction, having failed to heal his underlying issues. At age 19, Luke moved to Hollywood, CA, to pursue his dreams as a musician. But carrying forward unresolved childhood trauma, he soon found himself lost in the city's shadows, addicted to alcohol, heroin, and crack. Mental, emotional, and physical illness were familiar companions as his life spiraled toward oblivion. Thankfully, his desperation inspired an interest in Eastern mysticism and alternative medicine, which later became integral to his redemption. One evening, during a harrowing psilocybin mushroom trip, Luke was confronted by this hopelessness of his situation. Unable to avoid the harsh reality of his predicament, he subsequently entered a drug treatment center at the age of 26. Humbled by 15 years in the bondage of addiction, Luke willingly embraced the 12-Step approach to recovery. There he discovered the transformative power of spiritual principles and prayer. This process of surrender facilitated a spiritual awakening that forever changed the course of his life. Inspired by this newfound freedom, Luke began channeling his passion for escapism into pursuing spiritual wisdom and higher states of consciousness. Through his reawakening, he became deeply committed to understanding the healing process and helping others overcome their limitations.
1 Corinthians 3:11 — Why is the heart divided by following the words, thinking, and philosophy of others? In this sermon on 1 Corinthians 3:11 titled “Christ: The Only Foundation,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones teaches that all must have a foundation for everything they do, say, and think. Issues in this life are the result of a lack of a solid foundation. Desire has replaced principle, truth, and morality. Many call themselves Christians while denying the very being of God. Everything is in a state of flux and uncertainty. Are Christians supposed to “hope for the best and expect the worst”? The Bible's message is emphatically concerned about this. Unaided, no one can build the necessary solid foundation. No one knows how to live or how to die. What is a person? Who is God? What is life? Learn the definitions for each of these and how to handle the stresses and strains of this world. Death is not the end; everyone will have to give an account before God. Look to the one who is truly man and truly God. No one at their greatest is enough. The ultimate sin is godlessness. The chief end of man is to know God and glorify Him forever. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/603/29
1 Corinthians 3:11 — Why is the heart divided by following the words, thinking, and philosophy of others? In this sermon on 1 Corinthians 3:11 titled “Christ: The Only Foundation,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones teaches that all must have a foundation for everything they do, say, and think. Issues in this life are the result of a lack of a solid foundation. Desire has replaced principle, truth, and morality. Many call themselves Christians while denying the very being of God. Everything is in a state of flux and uncertainty. Are Christians supposed to “hope for the best and expect the worst”? The Bible's message is emphatically concerned about this. Unaided, no one can build the necessary solid foundation. No one knows how to live or how to die. What is a person? Who is God? What is life? Learn the definitions for each of these and how to handle the stresses and strains of this world. Death is not the end; everyone will have to give an account before God. Look to the one who is truly man and truly God. No one at their greatest is enough. The ultimate sin is godlessness. The chief end of man is to know God and glorify Him forever.
1 Corinthians 3:11 — Why is the heart divided by following the words, thinking, and philosophy of others? In this sermon on 1 Corinthians 3:11 titled “Christ: The Only Foundation,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones teaches that all must have a foundation for everything they do, say, and think. Issues in this life are the result of a lack of a solid foundation. Desire has replaced principle, truth, and morality. Many call themselves Christians while denying the very being of God. Everything is in a state of flux and uncertainty. Are Christians supposed to “hope for the best and expect the worst”? The Bible's message is emphatically concerned about this. Unaided, no one can build the necessary solid foundation. No one knows how to live or how to die. What is a person? Who is God? What is life? Learn the definitions for each of these and how to handle the stresses and strains of this world. Death is not the end; everyone will have to give an account before God. Look to the one who is truly man and truly God. No one at their greatest is enough. The ultimate sin is godlessness. The chief end of man is to know God and glorify Him forever. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/603/29
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Amazing science news this week comes from the UK, where a 1 year old baby who was born deaf due to a genetic condition called auditory neuropathy was treated with gene therapy. Six months later, the researchers involved in this ground-breaking study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in Baltimore this week, reported that the toddler can now hear unaided and her prognosis is great for her being able to hear in the future. Auditory neuropathy is caused by a variation in a gene called the OTOF gene. This gene produces the protein needed to allow the inner hair cells in the ear to communicate with the hearing nerve which sends signals to the brain. Patients with the condition are unable to hear as the lack of proteins mean the ear cells can't communicate with the brain. The gene therapy treatment involved the baby being given an injection into her cochlea that contained a modified virus called AAV1 which was loaded with a working copy of the OTOF gene. This virus delivered the working gene to the ear cells, and the gene-reading machinery within those cells used the new information to build RNA which directs the correct proteins to be made that can carry out their job as normal. The amazing thing about gene therapy is that you only need one treatment for the results to last a lifetime. One of the impressive things about this study is the young age of the patient. Typically, auditory neuropathy isn't diagnosed until a child is 3 years old. However because the older sister of this patient was also born with auditory neuropathy, the diagnosis was given in this patient when they were only a few weeks old. By being able to determine and treat the cause of her deafness before the age of one, the researchers believe that she won't have significant delays in her speech as she grows up. While gene therapy is relatively new, we are working on a gene therapy here in New Zealand at the Malaghan institute that treats cancer, called CAR-T cell therapy. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Emily Moore was just 19 she suffered a knee injury which led to her being told she'd never walk unaided again, let alone run. Now, she's on the edge of taking on the toughest footrace in the world, the formidable Marathon des Sables, in April. After suffering her injury, Emily was determined she would run again, immediately entering the London Marathon. A painful period of rehabilitation followed, but her dream became a reality with her knee surgeon among those cheering her to the finish line. Since then, Emily has completed a number of marathons and triathlons, teaching herself to swim along the way. And last year she turned ultra runner, completing the Glasgow to Edinburgh Ultra in October 2022. That was followed by the five-day, 123-mile Capital to Country Ultra in Nepal last year. Her decision to powerwalk it, rather than run, saw her discover a unique way of tackling the endurance event that also featured a blessing at a school and a wedding. Running Tales spoke to Emily about running while pregnant, how the sport has helped her meet friends all over the world, and why the Nepal Capital to Country Ultra saw her find herself again after divorce... -------------------------------- Discount offer: Racin' Grayson Training Log & Planner Looking for a great gift for runners or the perfect training aid for yourself, designed by a pro-runner? Look no further than the Racin' Grayson Training Log & Planner. The training log and planner is your key to staying organised and inspired on your journey to conquer your running goals. Experience the convenience of the Airplane Arms snap-in bookmark, ensuring you never lose your place as you dive into the race day schedule and goal-setting worksheet, empowering you to plan and achieve your objectives effectively. With edicated daily spaces for tracking both training and life events, weekly doses of motivation with inspirational quotes, and monthly and yearly habit trackers, the Racin' Grayson Training Log & Planner will help you organise every aspect of your life. To take advantage of our 20% discount, simply head over to https://www.racin-grayson.com/product-page/racin-grayson-2024-training-log-planner and use the code RUNNINGTALES20. * Listen to our podcast with Grayson Murphy here: https://runningtales.podbean.com/e/grayson-murphy-the-late-bloomer-turned-two-time-world-mountain-running-champion/ * Read our article, The Grayson Murphy story: Aeroplane arms and winning world championships, here: https://runningtales.substack.com/p/the-grayson-murphy-story-aeroplane -------------------------------- Read our story about the Capital to Country Multi-Day Ultra in Nepal on our Substack page: https://runningtales.substack.com/p/from-capital-to-country-the-spiritual
Calvinists and Arminians agree that humans are saved by God's grace alone. But how does grace work? Does God apply grace in advance to allow people the capacity to follow him? Or does God apply grace to those who are chosen, in order to actually bring about their salvation?--The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you're looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.Donate Now --Because human beings are fallen and sinful, they are not able to think, will, nor do anything good in and of themselves, including believe the gospel of Christ. Unaided by God's grace, no one can choose to please God or to believe the promise of salvation held out in the gospel. But how does grace work? Does God give grace to allow sinners the ability to choose whether or not to accept or reject the message of salvation? Or does God apply grace to actually accomplish salvation for those sinners whom he has already chosen?Irresistible GraceCalvinists believe that because God's grace is only applied to the elect, that grace cannot be resisted. They explain that there are two ways God calls people to repentance. The first is the outer call, which is extended to anyone who hears the gospel. This can be and often is rejected. By contrast, the internal call is extended only to the elect and can never be rejected. This internal call always results in conversion. They argue that people are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1). Physically dead persons are incapable of responding to any external message or stimulus. Likewise, spiritually dead people must be given spiritual life before they can respond to God's call. The Holy Spirit, in cooperation with the will of the Father, gives the gift of salvation to the elect. God then bestows to them the faith which Christ secured for them at the cross. Finally, the Spirit leads these spiritually regenerated sinners to cooperate with God and repent, which leads to their conversion. The Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ.In this view, God's grace never fails to result in the salvation of those to whom it is applied. As a result, God's grace is never thwarted. Calvinists believe that if the Spirit's regenerating work does not come before both faith and repentance, these responses become human works. But the Spirit, they say, is not limited in his work of salvation by human will, nor is he dependent on human cooperation. Thus salvation is entirely and only a work of God. Followers of Calvinism focus on Bible texts that emphasize the impossibility of a human sinner's response to God, the priority of God's will over human will, and the effectiveness of God's grace.John 6:37-39 – “Those the Father has given to me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last
News Corp's new shoppable video format, which lets audiences buy without leaving the content, has been “flying off the shelves” across alcohol, beauty and consumer electronics, News' data, video and product director Paul Blackburn says – and the trial with Moet & Chandon hasn't even finished. “We have 14 other clients in flight, post-Moet,” he said, “and there's a huge pipeline of other clients looking.” The format is part of News' reengineering effort to unlock what McKinsey describes as ‘commerce media' or ‘content media' – a $50bn incremental goldmine buried within media companies. “We've always been really good at upper funnel, we're really good – we've always been an amazing billboard,” News' MD for Client Product Pippa Leary says. “Now we're going to become a billboard and a shopfront.” The trial with Moet, with Kantar testing, has found a 10 per cent plus rise in purchase intent and a 38 per cent unaided brand awareness uplift.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pursuing a higher education is often not attainable for everyone. Finances and documentation status often plays a large role, so we beg the question: what programs exist to help students aid their studies? This week we sat down with Nardi Velasquez and Ethan Mercado, the co-community outreach coordinators for UndocuMason. This student-led organization aims to create a more inclusive environment for undocumented immigrants through education and advocacy.
Hope Unaided By A Clear Plan Eventually Leads to Illness! | Dr. Rick Wallace Hope, in its proper perspective, is an essential element and component of moving forward in life. However, hope unaided by a plan will eventually lead to illness. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." (Proverbs 13:12) You need to find five reasons why you can't give up --- five reasons that will not allow you to quit. You have to know your why, or the obstacles and challenges you face will shut you down each and every time. While is a powerful force capable of sustaining you in difficult moments where it may be hard to see the finish line, hope alone cannot assist you in making your life better. Your life will only improve by you exciting a clear plan with clear objectives. "Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29:18) The vision provides the optics for the plan. The more details you write down from your vision, the closer you are to bringing it to reality. All hope is not good hope. There are two types of hope that are completely counterproductive and inherently dangerous to your purpose and destiny: 1. Passive Hope 2. Happy Hope Passive will have you meandering through life just hoping for things while doing nothing to create them. Happy hope is worse. Happy hope can be seen in the 60-year-old who has a perpetual smile while living hand to mouth. He has become content with his hope and seeks nothing more. It is time to take action. I want to help you transform your hope into power through proven practices and principles. Sign up for a Rapid-Change Breakthrough session with me and let's make 2022 the best year of your life. Click here: https://square.link/u/Nuwa9ziT Join the Epic Realm community of high achievers at: https://square.link/u/GyAgkz3N --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-wallace3/message
Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 289, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Go Old West, Young Man 1: Fort Bonneville in this "Cowboy State" was "Fort Nonsense" to scoffing trappers. Wyoming. 2: Wells, Fargo and Company opened in this California city in 1852 to offer miners express and banking services. San Francisco. 3: "Cowpuncher" was a term for a cowboy; this "puncher" was a preacher. a Bible puncher. 4: Thomas Moran's artwork helped influence Congress to make this America's first national park. Yellowstone. 5: A cowboy who "cut a man down" shot him; if he "cut the dust", he did this. taking a drink. Round 2. Category: Directional Diversions 1: Steinbeck shows sadness in Salinas:" blank of Eden". East. 2: 1948 Pulitzer winner for Michener:"Tales of the blank Pacific". South. 3: Percy Bysshe Shelley:"Ode to the blank Wind". West. 4: Shared title of 2 tales, one by John Jakes and one by Elizabeth Gaskell:" blank and blank ". North and South. 5: Robert Frost's 1914 collection:" blank of Boston". North. Round 3. Category: Russian Cities 1: This city is home to St. Basil's Cathedral and Red Square. Moscow. 2: Novosibirsk and Omsk are the 2 main cities in this large, cold Russian region. Siberia. 3: In 1712 the capital of Russia was moved to this city later named Leningrad. St. Petersburg. 4: The ancestral mother city of the Russian people is this capital of neighboring Ukraine. Kiev. 5: Grozny is the capital city of this region that has waged a struggle for independence since the mid-1990s. Chechnya. Round 4. Category: The "Naked" Truth 1: A Leslie Nielsen comedy. The Naked Gun. 2: Unaided vision. Naked eye. 3: In other words, "dollar bill nude". Buck naked. 4: Boisterous beatnik Burroughs' book. "Naked Lunch". 5: Goya's girl. "The Naked Maja". Round 5. Category: "C" Me 1: An evil prayer appealing for harm to come to another. Curse. 2: Adjective meaning curved inward, like the inside of a circle or sphere. concave. 3: A structure for venting gas or smoke. Chimney. 4: The state of sexual abstinence. Celibacy. 5: This Christian church is headed by The Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt. the Coptic Church. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!
Keith Browning is the Brand Marketing Global Lead at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. With over a decade's marketing experience in start-up and blue-chip companies alike, Keith currently leads Brand Marketing globally for LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions business unit. He has created stand-out marketing campaigns across the US and Europe for a number of well-known brands across the travel, tech & hospitality sectors. Keith is a keynote speaker in many areas of Marketing, most notably B2B Marketing and Brand Marketing. We discuss: Unaided brand awareness - What it is and its strategic value What makes an effective campaign and how to measure success Why LinkedIn invests in TV advertising What makes great B2B advertising How B2B can harness the power of emotion How do the best B2B brand builders use LinkedIn to build their brand
The 365 Days of Astronomy, the daily podcast of the International Year of Astronomy 2009
http://www.astronomycast.com/archive/ From June 7th, 2010. We talk a lot about telescopes here on Astronomy Cast, but you really don’t need any special equipment to appreciate what the night sky has to offer. Just head outside with some sky charts, maybe a planisphere, some friends and hot chocolate, and you’re good to go. Let’s talk about what kinds of things you can see with just your eyes. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/ Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.
About Us: https://untoislam.com Podcast: https://untoislam.com/podcast Submit A Question: https://untoislam.com/questions Sign-Up Free Courses: https://untoislam.com/free-course Sponsor|Donate|Support|Help Us: https://untoislam.com/donate Hosted by Crystal Joseph. Known online as 'Khadija Kimchi'; Khadija is an ethnically Chinese, Canadian-born revert to Islam of 10 years. Her call to Islam began in 2011 as she describes her time up until that point as a life 'left lacking'. In the pen-ultimate year before her conversion she recalls the fruition of the innate questions which reside in all of us such as: What is the meaning of life? What is my higher purpose? (Because this isn't it!) Unaided and unfulfilled in the answer to these questions led her to reckless behaviour under the guise of having fun. Khadija's unwitting search for the truth took an unexpected turn when she witnessed a Muslim praying for the first time. As time passed, Khadija found herself nourished by the fundamental framework of Islam. Consequently, inspiring and admirable qualities such as empathy, understanding and being a beacon of support were given space to blossom. She now provides just that to other sisters through her online platform and community 'The Camellias Bloom Podcast'. Was she always a Muslim? About Khadija: Converted in 2011, that's 10 years ago From Toronto, Canada Currently lives in the Middle East She's a writer, personal trainer and social media influencer Her hobbies and interests include blogging, podcast, painting, crochet and community outreach Loves helping out the community, mainly sisters Khadija currently hosts her own podcast and is creating a community just for new Muslim sisters and convert sisters because it is a much-needed platform where we can have support from one another without judgements and with empathy. This allows sisters to know they are not alone on their journey to Allah. https://thecamelliasbloompodcast.podbean.com/ The Camellias Bloom is a community garden for convert/revert sisters all around the globe to bloom and blossom beautifully into the religion.
We definitely have more problems than alcohol. And just like with alcohol, they will not be solved by our lone courage and unaided will. We need help - from our fellows and from our Higher Power. Or, at least, I sure do. 12x12 page 39
Welcome to the 10th Blue Blaze episode of Foot Stuff Podcast. On these shorter episodes (Side Trails) we will be discussing arts, media, & entertainment in the outdoor world.On todays episode the gang discuss and review 'The Impossible First' by Colin O’Brady We start with a short history of O’Brady, then get into some of his previous world record breaking expeditions, before discussing the book itself which covers his recent journey across Antarctica Solo, Unsupported, and Unaided!You check check out the book & all of Colin’s work here:https://www.colinobrady.com/We hope you enjoy this side story, and we'll be back on the main trail soonhttps://www.footstuffpodcast.com/
Hour 2 Joe starts the second hour discussing Colin O'Brady completing the first ever unaided walk across Antarctica. Rookie gets hung up on one unimportant aspect of his trip. Dave Dahl also makes his very first appearance on the podcast to talk about the winter weather storm and travel complications.
As Aquaman and “Elseworlds” draw closer, more news emerges. Plus, we cover news on a Blue Beetle movie, Stargirl and Young Justice: Outsiders on DC Universe, and Black Lightning. Early box office tracking for Aquaman – Deadline Critics and final marketing push Expected to open #1 for December 21 weekend $65 million opening weekend, $100 million long 5-day Christmas weekend “Unaided awareness” […]
As Aquaman and “Elseworlds” draw closer, more news emerges. Plus, we cover news on a Blue Beetle movie, Stargirl and Young Justice: Outsiders on DC Universe, and Black Lightning. Early box office tracking for Aquaman – Deadline Critics and final marketing push Expected to open #1 for December 21 weekend $65 million opening weekend, $100 million long 5-day Christmas weekend “Unaided awareness” […]
In this episode I am joined by Louis Rudd, MBE. This interview with Lou was recorded in late October 2018, shortly before he departed for Chile and then onto Antarctica to attempt a solo, unsupported and unaided crossing of the Antarctic Continent via the South Pole. This means simply manhauling everything he needs for the trip, accepting no assistance and not using any aids such as kites to pull him along. It'll be entirely under his own steam. This is a challenge no-one has previously successfully completed...
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career
It is estimated that once fully adapted to darkness, the rods are 10,000 times more sensitive to light than the cones, making them the primary receptors for night vision. Since the cones are concentrated near the fovea, the rods are also responsible for much of the peripheral vision. The concentration of cones in the fovea can make a night blindspot in the center of the field of vision.To see an object clearly at night, the pilot must expose the rods to the image.This can be done by looking 5° to10° off center of the object to be seen.This can be tried in a dim light in a darkened room. When looking directly at the light, it dims or disappears altogether. When looking slightly off center, it becomes clearer and brighter. When looking directly at an object, the image is focused mainly on the fovea, where detail is best seen. At night, the ability to see an object in the center of the visual field is reduced as the cones lose much of their sensitivity and the rods become more sensitive. Looking off center can help compensate for this night blind spot. Along with the loss of sharpness (acuity) and color at night, depth perception and judgment of size may be lost. Dark Adaptation Dark adaptation is the adjustment of the human eye to a dark environment. That adjustment takes longer depending on the amount of light in the environment that a person has just left. Moving from a bright room into a dark one takes longer than moving from a dim room and going into a dark one. While the cones adapt rapidly to changes in light intensities, the rods take much longer. Walking from bright sunlight into a dark movie theater is an example of this dark adaptation period experience. The rods can take approximately 30 minutes to fully adapt to darkness. A bright light, however, can completely destroy night adaptation, leaving night vision severely compromised while the adaptation process is repeated. Scanning techniques are very important in identifying objects at night. To scan effectively, pilots must look from right to left or left to right. They should begin scanning at the greatest distance an object can be perceived (top) and move inward toward the position of the aircraft (bottom). For each stop, an area approximately 30° wide should be scanned. The duration of each stop is based on the degree of detail that is required, but no stop should last longer than 2 to 3 seconds. When moving from one viewing point to the next, pilots should overlap the previous field of view by 10°. Off-center viewing is another type of scan that pilots can use during night flying. It is a technique that requires an object be viewed by looking 10° above, below, or to either side of the object. In this manner, the peripheral vision can maintain contact with an object. With off-center vision, the images of an object viewed longer than 2 to 3 seconds will disappear. This occurs because the rods reach a photochemical equilibrium that prevents any further response until the scene changes. This produces a potentially unsafe operating condition. To overcome this night vision limitation, pilots must be aware of the phenomenon and avoid viewing an object for longer than 2 or 3 seconds. The peripheral field of vision will continue to pick up the object when the eyes are shifted from one off- center point to another. Several things can be done to help with the dark adaptation process and to keep the eyes adapted to darkness. Some of the steps pilots and flight crews can take to protect their night vision are described in the following paragraphs. If, during the flight ,any high intensity lighting areas are encountered, attempt to turn the aircraft away and fly in the periphery of the lighted area.This will not expose the eyes to such a large amount of light all at once. If possible, plan your route to avoid direct over flight to built-up, brightly lit areas. Flight deck lighting should be kept as low as possible so that the light does not monopolize night vision. After reaching the desired flight altitude, pilots should allow time to adjust to the flight conditions.This includes readjustment of instrument lights and orientation to outside references. During the adjustment period, night vision should continue to improve until optimum night adaptation is achieved. When it is necessary to read maps, charts, and checklists, use a dim white light flashlight and avoid shining it in your or any other crew member’s eyes. Often time, pilots have no say in how airfield operations are handled, but listed below are some precautions that can be taken to make night flying safer and help protect night vision. •Airfield lighting should be reduced to the lowest usable intensity. •Maintenance personnel should practice light discipline with headlights and flashlights. •Position the aircraft at a part of the airfield where the least amount of lighting exists. If a night flight is scheduled, pilots and crewmembers should wear neutral density (N-15) sunglasses or equivalent filter lenses when exposed to bright sunlight. This precaution increases the rate of dark adaptation at night and improves night visual sensitivity. Unaided night vision depends on optimum function and sensitivity oftherods of the retina. Lack of oxygen to the rods (hypoxia) significantly reduces their sensitivity. Sharp clear vision(with the best being equal to 20–20 vision) requires significant oxygen especially at night. Without supplemental oxygen, an individual’s night vision declines measurably at pressure altitudes above 4,000 feet. As altitude increases, the available oxygen decreases, degrading night vision. Compounding the problem is fatigue, which minimizes physiological well being. Adding fatigue to high altitude exposure is a recipe for disaster. In fact, if flying at night at an altitude of 12,000 feet, the pilot may actually see elements of his orher normal vision missing or not in focus. Missing visual elements resemble the missing pixels in a digital image while unfocused vision is washed out. For the pilot suffering the effects of hypoxia, a simple descent to a lower altitude may not be sufficient to reestablish vision. For example, a climb from 8,000 feet to 12,000 feet for 30 minutes does not mean a descent to 8,000 feet will rectify the problem. Visual acuity may not be regained for over an hour. Thus, it is important to remember, altitude and fatigue have a profound effect on a pilot’s ability to see. •Select approach and departure routes that avoid highways and residential areas where illumination can impair night vision. Night flight can be more fatiguing and stressful than day flight, and many self-imposed stressors can limit night vision. Pilots can control this type of stress by knowing the factors that can cause self-imposed stressors.
It started off as an Amazon.com side business. Now it is one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. But Courtney Gould had to evolve as a person and leader in order to make SmartyPants Vitamins a successful AND healthy company. They have disrupted the vitamin industry. The company's products are top ranked on Amazon and sold everywhere from Whole Foods and Target to Costco and beyond. Courtney is sharp and agile. A talented CEO. Learn about business and personal development: “I like complex problems!!!” No such thing as work/life balance - it is all connected Dealing with the fear of not crushing it The power of knowing yourself Understanding that you suck at most things (humility) Why the name SmartyPants? “I use to lead from fear” Going from Student of Life to Expert Becoming a 'Superager' Online/Amazon versus retail Unaided awareness vs aided awareness Methylfolate folate vs folic acid Recognizing and transforming your personal traits The personal development fund 1-for-1 nutrient grants to a child in need
Domhnall MacAuley - Can you get out of your chair unaided? -------------------- If you like what you hear, consider Joining the Senior Rehab Project to get access to: Monthly Mastermind Meetup Newsletter Private FB Group *For links & the other podcasts in the Senior Rehab Project, go to http://SeniorRehabProject.com
The Adjuster and the Soul (1215.1) 111:0.1 THE presence of the divine Adjuster in the human mind makes it forever impossible for either science or philosophy to attain a satisfactory comprehension of the evolving soul of the human personality. The morontia soul is the child of the universe and may be really known only through cosmic insight and spiritual discovery. (1215.2) 111:0.2 The concept of a soul and of an indwelling spirit is not new to Urantia; it has frequently appeared in the various systems of planetary beliefs. Many of the Oriental as well as some of the Occidental faiths have perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as human in inheritance. The feeling of the inner presence in addition to the external omnipresence of Deity has long formed a part of many Urantian religions. Men have long believed that there is something growing within the human nature, something vital that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life. (1215.3) 111:0.3 Before man realized that his evolving soul was fathered by a divine spirit, it was thought to reside in different physical organs — the eye, liver, kidney, heart, and later, the brain. The savage associated the soul with blood, breath, shadows and with reflections of the self in water. (1215.4) 111:0.4 In the conception of the atman the Hindu teachers really approximated an appreciation of the nature and presence of the Adjuster, but they failed to distinguish the copresence of the evolving and potentially immortal soul. The Chinese, however, recognized two aspects of a human being, the yang and the yin, the soul and the spirit. The Egyptians and many African tribes also believed in two factors, the ka and the ba; the soul was not usually believed to be pre-existent, only the spirit.* (1215.5) 111:0.5 The inhabitants of the Nile valley believed that each favored individual had bestowed upon him at birth, or soon thereafter, a protecting spirit which they called the ka. They taught that this guardian spirit remained with the mortal subject throughout life and passed before him into the future estate. On the walls of a temple at Luxor, where is depicted the birth of Amenhotep III, the little prince is pictured on the arm of the Nile god, and near him is another child, in appearance identical with the prince, which is a symbol of that entity which the Egyptians called the ka. This sculpture was completed in the fifteenth century before Christ. (1215.6) 111:0.6 The ka was thought to be a superior spirit genius which desired to guide the associated mortal soul into the better paths of temporal living but more especially to influence the fortunes of the human subject in the hereafter. When an Egyptian of this period died, it was expected that his ka would be waiting for him on the other side of the Great River. At first, only kings were supposed to have kas, but presently all righteous men were believed to possess them. One Egyptian ruler, speaking of the ka within his heart, said: “I did not disregard its speech; I feared to transgress its guidance. I prospered thereby greatly; I was thus successful by reason of that which it caused me to do; I was distinguished by its guidance.” Many believed that the ka was “an oracle from God in everybody.” Many believed that they were to “spend eternity in gladness of heart in the favor of the God that is in you.” (1216.1) 111:0.7 Every race of evolving Urantia mortals has a word equivalent to the concept of soul. Many primitive peoples believed the soul looked out upon the world through human eyes; therefore did they so cravenly fear the malevolence of the evil eye. They have long believed that “the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.” The Rig-Veda says: “My mind speaks to my heart.” 1. The Mind Arena of Choice (1216.2) 111:1.1 Though the work of Adjusters is spiritual in nature, they must, perforce, do all their work upon an intellectual foundation. Mind is the human soil from which the spirit Monitor must evolve the morontia soul with the co-operation of the indwelt personality. (1216.3) 111:1.2 There is a cosmic unity in the several mind levels of the universe of universes. Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space. On the human (hence personal) level of intellectual selves the potential of spirit evolution becomes dominant, with the assent of the mortal mind, because of the spiritual endowments of the human personality together with the creative presence of an entity-point of absolute value in such human selves. But such a spirit dominance of the material mind is conditioned upon two experiences: This mind must have evolved up through the ministry of the seven adjutant mind-spirits, and the material (personal) self must choose to co-operate with the indwelling Adjuster in creating and fostering the morontia self, the evolutionary and potentially immortal soul. (1216.4) 111:1.3 Material mind is the arena in which human personalities live, are self-conscious, make decisions, choose God or forsake him, eternalize or destroy themselves. (1216.5) 111:1.4 Material evolution has provided you a life machine, your body; the Father himself has endowed you with the purest spirit reality known in the universe, your Thought Adjuster. But into your hands, subject to your own decisions, has been given mind, and it is by mind that you live or die. It is within this mind and with this mind that you make those moral decisions which enable you to achieve Adjusterlikeness, and that is Godlikeness. (1216.6) 111:1.5 Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul — the morontia self — will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity. (1217.1) 111:1.6 Mind is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, or upon which this same human will can bring forth the exquisite melodies of God identification and consequent eternal survival. The Adjuster bestowed upon man is, in the last analysis, impervious to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal mind can actually be twisted, distorted, and rendered evil and ugly by the sinful machinations of a perverse and self-seeking human will. Likewise can this mind be made noble, beautiful, true, and good — actually great — in accordance with the spirit-illuminated will of a God-knowing human being. (1217.2) 111:1.7 Evolutionary mind is only fully stable and dependable when manifesting itself upon the two extremes of cosmic intellectuality — the wholly mechanized and the entirely spiritualized. Between the intellectual extremes of pure mechanical control and true spirit nature there intervenes that enormous group of evolving and ascending minds whose stability and tranquillity are dependent upon personality choice and spirit identification. (1217.3) 111:1.8 But man does not passively, slavishly, surrender his will to the Adjuster. Rather does he actively, positively, and co-operatively choose to follow the Adjuster’s leading when and as such leading consciously differs from the desires and impulses of the natural mortal mind. The Adjusters manipulate but never dominate man’s mind against his will; to the Adjusters the human will is supreme. And they so regard and respect it while they strive to achieve the spiritual goals of thought adjustment and character transformation in the almost limitless arena of the evolving human intellect. (1217.4) 111:1.9 Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters. 2. Nature of the Soul (1217.5) 111:2.1 Throughout the mind functions of cosmic intelligence, the totality of mind is dominant over the parts of intellectual function. Mind, in its essence, is functional unity; therefore does mind never fail to manifest this constitutive unity, even when hampered and hindered by the unwise actions and choices of a misguided self. And this unity of mind invariably seeks for spirit co-ordination on all levels of its association with selves of will dignity and ascension prerogatives. (1217.6) 111:2.2 The material mind of mortal man is the cosmic loom that carries the morontia fabrics on which the indwelling Thought Adjuster threads the spirit patterns of a universe character of enduring values and divine meanings — a surviving soul of ultimate destiny and unending career, a potential finaliter. (1218.1) 111:2.3 The human personality is identified with mind and spirit held together in functional relationship by life in a material body. This functioning relationship of such mind and spirit does not result in some combination of the qualities or attributes of mind and spirit but rather in an entirely new, original, and unique universe value of potentially eternal endurance, the soul. (1218.2) 111:2.4 There are three and not two factors in the evolutionary creation of such an immortal soul. These three antecedents of the morontia human soul are: (1218.3) 111:2.5 1. The human mind and all cosmic influences antecedent thereto and impinging thereon. (1218.4) 111:2.6 2. The divine spirit indwelling this human mind and all potentials inherent in such a fragment of absolute spirituality together with all associated spiritual influences and factors in human life. (1218.5) 111:2.7 3. The relationship between material mind and divine spirit, which connotes a value and carries a meaning not found in either of the contributing factors to such an association. The reality of this unique relationship is neither material nor spiritual but morontial. It is the soul. (1218.6) 111:2.8 The midway creatures have long denominated this evolving soul of man the mid-mind in contradistinction to the lower or material mind and the higher or cosmic mind. This mid-mind is really a morontia phenomenon since it exists in the realm between the material and the spiritual. The potential of such a morontia evolution is inherent in the two universal urges of mind: the impulse of the finite mind of the creature to know God and attain the divinity of the Creator, and the impulse of the infinite mind of the Creator to know man and attain the experience of the creature. (1218.7) 111:2.9 This supernal transaction of evolving the immortal soul is made possible because the mortal mind is first personal and second is in contact with superanimal realities; it possesses a supermaterial endowment of cosmic ministry which insures the evolution of a moral nature capable of making moral decisions, thereby effecting a bona fide creative contact with the associated spiritual ministries and with the indwelling Thought Adjuster. (1218.8) 111:2.10 The inevitable result of such a contactual spiritualization of the human mind is the gradual birth of a soul, the joint offspring of an adjutant mind dominated by a human will that craves to know God, working in liaison with the spiritual forces of the universe which are under the overcontrol of an actual fragment of the very God of all creation — the Mystery Monitor. And thus does the material and mortal reality of the self transcend the temporal limitations of the physical-life machine and attain a new expression and a new identification in the evolving vehicle for selfhood continuity, the morontia and immortal soul. 3. The Evolving Soul (1218.9) 111:3.1 The mistakes of mortal mind and the errors of human conduct may markedly delay the evolution of the soul, although they cannot inhibit such a morontia phenomenon when once it has been initiated by the indwelling Adjuster with the consent of the creature will. But at any time prior to mortal death this same material and human will is empowered to rescind such a choice and to reject survival. Even after survival the ascending mortal still retains this prerogative of choosing to reject eternal life; at any time before fusion with the Adjuster the evolving and ascending creature can choose to forsake the will of the Paradise Father. Fusion with the Adjuster signalizes the fact that the ascending mortal has eternally and unreservedly chosen to do the Father’s will. (1219.1) 111:3.2 During the life in the flesh the evolving soul is enabled to reinforce the supermaterial decisions of the mortal mind. The soul, being supermaterial, does not of itself function on the material level of human experience. Neither can this subspiritual soul, without the collaboration of some spirit of Deity, such as the Adjuster, function above the morontia level. Neither does the soul make final decisions until death or translation divorces it from material association with the mortal mind except when and as this material mind delegates such authority freely and willingly to such a morontia soul of associated function. During life the mortal will, the personality power of decision-choice, is resident in the material mind circuits; as terrestrial mortal growth proceeds, this self, with its priceless powers of choice, becomes increasingly identified with the emerging morontia-soul entity; after death and following the mansion world resurrection, the human personality is completely identified with the morontia self. The soul is thus the embryo of the future morontia vehicle of personality identity. (1219.2) 111:3.3 This immortal soul is at first wholly morontia in nature, but it possesses such a capacity for development that it invariably ascends to the true spirit levels of fusion value with the spirits of Deity, usually with the same spirit of the Universal Father that initiated such a creative phenomenon in the creature mind. (1219.3) 111:3.4 Both the human mind and the divine Adjuster are conscious of the presence and differential nature of the evolving soul — the Adjuster fully, the mind partially. The soul becomes increasingly conscious of both the mind and the Adjuster as associated identities, proportional to its own evolutionary growth. The soul partakes of the qualities of both the human mind and the divine spirit but persistently evolves toward augmentation of spirit control and divine dominance through the fostering of a mind function whose meanings seek to co-ordinate with true spirit value. (1219.4) 111:3.5 The mortal career, the soul’s evolution, is not so much a probation as an education. Faith in the survival of supreme values is the core of religion; genuine religious experience consists in the union of supreme values and cosmic meanings as a realization of universal reality. (1219.5) 111:3.6 Mind knows quantity, reality, meanings. But quality — values — is felt. That which feels is the mutual creation of mind, which knows, and the associated spirit, which reality-izes. (1219.6) 111:3.7 In so far as man’s evolving morontia soul becomes permeated by truth, beauty, and goodness as the value-realization of God-consciousness, such a resultant being becomes indestructible. If there is no survival of eternal values in the evolving soul of man, then mortal existence is without meaning, and life itself is a tragic illusion. But it is forever true: What you begin in time you will assuredly finish in eternity — if it is worth finishing. 4. The Inner Life (1219.7) 111:4.1 Recognition is the intellectual process of fitting the sensory impressions received from the external world into the memory patterns of the individual. Understanding connotes that these recognized sensory impressions and their associated memory patterns have become integrated or organized into a dynamic network of principles. (1220.1) 111:4.2 Meanings are derived from a combination of recognition and understanding. Meanings are nonexistent in a wholly sensory or material world. Meanings and values are only perceived in the inner or supermaterial spheres of human experience. (1220.2) 111:4.3 The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world. (1220.3) 111:4.4 The inner and the outer worlds have a different set of values. Any civilization is in jeopardy when three quarters of its youth enter materialistic professions and devote themselves to the pursuit of the sensory activities of the outer world. Civilization is in danger when youth neglect to interest themselves in ethics, sociology, eugenics, philosophy, the fine arts, religion, and cosmology. (1220.4) 111:4.5 Only in the higher levels of the superconscious mind as it impinges upon the spirit realm of human experience can you find those higher concepts in association with effective master patterns which will contribute to the building of a better and more enduring civilization. Personality is inherently creative, but it thus functions only in the inner life of the individual. (1220.5) 111:4.6 Snow crystals are always hexagonal in form, but no two are ever alike. Children conform to types, but no two are exactly alike, even in the case of twins. Personality follows types but is always unique. (1220.6) 111:4.7 Happiness and joy take origin in the inner life. You cannot experience real joy all by yourself. A solitary life is fatal to happiness. Even families and nations will enjoy life more if they share it with others. (1220.7) 111:4.8 You cannot completely control the external world — environment. It is the creativity of the inner world that is most subject to your direction because there your personality is so largely liberated from the fetters of the laws of antecedent causation. There is associated with personality a limited sovereignty of will. (1220.8) 111:4.9 Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive. How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments, revenge, and bigotries? (1220.9) 111:4.10 Ideas may take origin in the stimuli of the outer world, but ideals are born only in the creative realms of the inner world. Today the nations of the world are directed by men who have a superabundance of ideas, but they are poverty-stricken in ideals. That is the explanation of poverty, divorce, war, and racial hatreds. (1220.10) 111:4.11 This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin — oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction. All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life — it is a species of civil war in the personality. (1221.1) 111:4.12 Inner creativity contributes to ennoblement of character through personality integration and selfhood unification. It is forever true: The past is unchangeable; only the future can be changed by the ministry of the present creativity of the inner self. 5. The Consecration of Choice (1221.2) 111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God — with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlike — divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes. (1221.3) 111:5.2 The imitation of God is the key to perfection; the doing of his will is the secret of survival and of perfection in survival. (1221.4) 111:5.3 Mortals live in God, and so God has willed to live in mortals. As men trust themselves to him, so has he — and first — trusted a part of himself to be with men; has consented to live in men and to indwell men subject to the human will. (1221.5) 111:5.4 Peace in this life, survival in death, perfection in the next life, service in eternity — all these are achieved (in spirit) now when the creature personality consents — chooses — to subject the creature will to the Father’s will. And already has the Father chosen to make a fragment of himself subject to the will of the creature personality. (1221.6) 111:5.5 Such a creature choice is not a surrender of will. It is a consecration of will, an expansion of will, a glorification of will, a perfecting of will; and such choosing raises the creature will from the level of temporal significance to that higher estate wherein the personality of the creature son communes with the personality of the spirit Father. (1221.7) 111:5.6 This choosing of the Father’s will is the spiritual finding of the spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age must pass before the creature son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will — “Not my will but yours be done” — as it consists in the creature’s positive affirmation: “It is my will that your will be done.” And if this choice is made, sooner or later will the God-choosing son find inner union (fusion) with the indwelling God fragment, while this same perfecting son will find supreme personality satisfaction in the worship communion of the personality of man and the personality of his Maker, two personalities whose creative attributes have eternally joined in self-willed mutuality of expression — the birth of another eternal partnership of the will of man and the will of God. 6. The Human Paradox (1221.8) 111:6.1 Many of the temporal troubles of mortal man grow out of his twofold relation to the cosmos. Man is a part of nature — he exists in nature — and yet he is able to transcend nature. Man is finite, but he is indwelt by a spark of infinity. Such a dual situation not only provides the potential for evil but also engenders many social and moral situations fraught with much uncertainty and not a little anxiety. (1222.1) 111:6.2 The courage required to effect the conquest of nature and to transcend one’s self is a courage that might succumb to the temptations of self-pride. The mortal who can transcend self might yield to the temptation to deify his own self-consciousness. The mortal dilemma consists in the double fact that man is in bondage to nature while at the same time he possesses a unique liberty — freedom of spiritual choice and action. On material levels man finds himself subservient to nature, while on spiritual levels he is triumphant over nature and over all things temporal and finite. Such a paradox is inseparable from temptation, potential evil, decisional errors, and when self becomes proud and arrogant, sin may evolve. (1222.2) 111:6.3 The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator — it is the handiwork of his divine Sons — and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin. (1222.3) 111:6.4 The spirit can dominate mind; so mind can control energy. But mind can control energy only through its own intelligent manipulation of the metamorphic potentials inherent in the mathematical level of the causes and effects of the physical domains. Creature mind does not inherently control energy; that is a Deity prerogative. But creature mind can and does manipulate energy just in so far as it has become master of the energy secrets of the physical universe. (1222.4) 111:6.5 When man wishes to modify physical reality, be it himself or his environment, he succeeds to the extent that he has discovered the ways and means of controlling matter and directing energy. Unaided mind is impotent to influence anything material save its own physical mechanism, with which it is inescapably linked. But through the intelligent use of the body mechanism, mind can create other mechanisms, even energy relationships and living relationships, by the utilization of which this mind can increasingly control and even dominate its physical level in the universe. (1222.5) 111:6.6 Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts. They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these in his own evolving cosmic philosophy. (1222.6) 111:6.7 The expansion of material knowledge permits a greater intellectual appreciation of the meanings of ideas and the values of ideals. A human being can find truth in his inner experience, but he needs a clear knowledge of facts to apply his personal discovery of truth to the ruthlessly practical demands of everyday life. (1222.7) 111:6.8 It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of insecurity as he views himself inextricably bound to nature while he possesses spiritual powers wholly transcendent to all things temporal and finite. Only religious confidence — living faith — can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems. (1223.1) 111:6.9 Of all the dangers which beset man’s mortal nature and jeopardize his spiritual integrity, pride is the greatest. Courage is valorous, but egotism is vainglorious and suicidal. Reasonable self-confidence is not to be deplored. Man’s ability to transcend himself is the one thing which distinguishes him from the animal kingdom. (1223.2) 111:6.10 Pride is deceitful, intoxicating, and sin-breeding whether found in an individual, a group, a race, or a nation. It is literally true, “Pride goes before a fall.” 7. The Adjuster’s Problem (1223.3) 111:7.1 Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure — uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father. (1223.4) 111:7.2 May I admonish you to heed the distant echo of the Adjuster’s faithful call to your soul? The indwelling Adjuster cannot stop or even materially alter your career struggle of time; the Adjuster cannot lessen the hardships of life as you journey on through this world of toil. The divine indweller can only patiently forbear while you fight the battle of life as it is lived on your planet; but you could, if you only would — as you work and worry, as you fight and toil — permit the valiant Adjuster to fight with you and for you. You could be so comforted and inspired, so enthralled and intrigued, if you would only allow the Adjuster constantly to bring forth the pictures of the real motive, the final aim, and the eternal purpose of all this difficult, uphill struggle with the commonplace problems of your present material world. (1223.5) 111:7.3 Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? Why do you not allow the Adjuster to strengthen you with the spiritual truths of cosmic power while you wrestle with the temporal difficulties of creature existence? Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour? Why do you refuse to be enlightened and inspired by the universe viewpoint while you toil amidst the handicaps of time and flounder in the maze of uncertainties which beset your mortal life journey? Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking, even though your feet must tread the material paths of earthly endeavor? (1223.6) 111:7.4 The higher human races of Urantia are complexly admixed; they are a blend of many races and stocks of different origin. This composite nature renders it exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to work efficiently during life and adds definitely to the problems of both the Adjuster and the guardian seraphim after death. Not long since I was present on Salvington and heard a guardian of destiny present a formal statement in extenuation of the difficulties of ministering to her mortal subject. This seraphim said: (1223.7) 111:7.5 “Much of my difficulty was due to the unending conflict between the two natures of my subject: the urge of ambition opposed by animal indolence; the ideals of a superior people crossed by the instincts of an inferior race; the high purposes of a great mind antagonized by the urge of a primitive inheritance; the long-distance view of a far-seeing Monitor counteracted by the nearsightedness of a creature of time; the progressive plans of an ascending being modified by the desires and longings of a material nature; the flashes of universe intelligence cancelled by the chemical-energy mandates of the evolving race; the urge of angels opposed by the emotions of an animal; the training of an intellect annulled by the tendencies of instinct; the experience of the individual opposed by the accumulated propensities of the race; the aims of the best overshadowed by the drift of the worst; the flight of genius neutralized by the gravity of mediocrity; the progress of the good retarded by the inertia of the bad; the art of the beautiful besmirched by the presence of evil; the buoyancy of health neutralized by the debility of disease; the fountain of faith polluted by the poisons of fear; the spring of joy embittered by the waters of sorrow; the gladness of anticipation disillusioned by the bitterness of realization; the joys of living ever threatened by the sorrows of death. Such a life on such a planet! And yet, because of the ever-present help and urge of the Thought Adjuster, this soul did achieve a fair degree of happiness and success and has even now ascended to the judgment halls of mansonia.” (1224.1) 111:7.6 [Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.]
Planetary Mortal Epochs (589.1) 52:0.1 FROM the inception of life on an evolutionary planet to the time of its final flowering in the era of light and life, there appear upon the stage of world action at least seven epochs of human life. These successive ages are determined by the planetary missions of the divine Sons, and on an average inhabited world these epochs appear in the following order: (589.2) 52:0.2 1. Pre-Planetary Prince Man. (589.3) 52:0.3 2. Post-Planetary Prince Man. (589.4) 52:0.4 3. Post-Adamic Man. (589.5) 52:0.5 4. Post-Magisterial Son Man. (589.6) 52:0.6 5. Post-Bestowal Son Man. (589.7) 52:0.7 6. Post-Teacher Son Man. (589.8) 52:0.8 7. The Era of Light and Life. (589.9) 52:0.9 The worlds of space, as soon as they are physically suitable for life, are placed on the registry of the Life Carriers, and in due time these Sons are dispatched to such planets for the purpose of initiating life. The entire period from life initiation to the appearance of man is designated the prehuman era and precedes the successive mortal epochs considered in this narrative. 1. Primitive Man (589.10) 52:1.1 From the time of man’s emergence from the animal level — when he can choose to worship the Creator — to the arrival of the Planetary Prince, mortal will creatures are called primitive men. There are six basic types or races of primitive men, and these early peoples successively appear in the order of the spectrum colors, beginning with the red. The length of time consumed in this early life evolution varies greatly on the different worlds, ranging from one hundred and fifty thousand years to over one million years of Urantia time. (589.11) 52:1.2 The evolutionary races of color — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo — begin to appear about the time that primitive man is developing a simple language and is beginning to exercise the creative imagination. By this time man is well accustomed to standing erect. (589.12) 52:1.3 Primitive men are mighty hunters and fierce fighters. The law of this age is the physical survival of the fittest; the government of these times is wholly tribal. During the early racial struggles on many worlds some of the evolutionary races are obliterated, as occurred on Urantia. Those who survive are usually subsequently blended with the later imported violet race, the Adamic peoples. (589.13) 52:1.4 In the light of subsequent civilization, this era of primitive man is a long, dark, and bloody chapter. The ethics of the jungle and the morals of the primeval forests are not in keeping with the standards of later dispensations of revealed religion and higher spiritual development. On normal and nonexperimental worlds this epoch is very different from the prolonged and extraordinarily brutal struggles which characterized this age on Urantia. When you have emerged from your first world experience, you will begin to see why this long and painful struggle on the evolutionary worlds occurs, and as you go forward in the Paradise path, you will increasingly understand the wisdom of these apparently strange doings. But notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of the early ages of human emergence, the performances of primitive man represent a splendid, even a heroic, chapter in the annals of an evolutionary world of time and space. (590.1) 52:1.5 Early evolutionary man is not a colorful creature. In general, these primitive mortals are cave dwellers or cliff residents. They also build crude huts in the large trees. Before they acquire a high order of intelligence, the planets are sometimes overrun with the larger types of animals. But early in this era mortals learn to kindle and maintain fire, and with the increase of inventive imagination and the improvement in tools, evolving man soon vanquishes the larger and more unwieldy animals. The early races also make extensive use of the larger flying animals. These enormous birds are able to carry one or two average-sized men for a nonstop flight of over five hundred miles. On some planets these birds are of great service since they possess a high order of intelligence, often being able to speak many words of the languages of the realm. These birds are most intelligent, very obedient, and unbelievably affectionate. Such passenger birds have been long extinct on Urantia, but your early ancestors enjoyed their services. (590.2) 52:1.6 Man’s acquirement of ethical judgment, moral will, is usually coincident with the appearance of early language. Upon attaining the human level, after this emergence of mortal will, these beings become receptive to the temporary indwelling of the divine Adjusters, and upon death many are duly elected as survivors and sealed by the archangels for subsequent resurrection and Spirit fusion. The archangels always accompany the Planetary Princes, and a dispensational adjudication of the realm is simultaneous with the prince’s arrival. (590.3) 52:1.7 All mortals who are indwelt by Thought Adjusters are potential worshipers; they have been “lighted by the true light,” and they possess capacity for seeking reciprocal contact with divinity. Nevertheless, the early or biologic religion of primitive man is largely a persistence of animal fear coupled with ignorant awe and tribal superstition. The survival of superstition in the Urantia races is hardly complimentary to your evolutionary development nor compatible with your otherwise splendid achievements in material progress. But this early fear religion serves a very valuable purpose in subduing the fiery tempers of these primitive creatures. It is the forerunner of civilization and the soil for the subsequent planting of the seeds of revealed religion by the Planetary Prince and his ministers. (590.4) 52:1.8 Within one hundred thousand years from the time man acquires erect posture, the Planetary Prince usually arrives, having been dispatched by the System Sovereign upon the report of the Life Carriers that will is functioning, even though comparatively few individuals have thus developed. Primitive mortals usually welcome the Planetary Prince and his visible staff; in fact, they often look upon them with awe and reverence, almost with worshipfulness, if they are not restrained. 2. Post-Planetary Prince Man (591.1) 52:2.1 With the arrival of the Planetary Prince a new dispensation begins. Government appears on earth, and the advanced tribal epoch is attained. Great social strides are made during a few thousand years of this regime. Under normal conditions mortals attain a high state of civilization during this age. They do not struggle so long in barbarism as did the Urantia races. But life on an inhabited world is so changed by rebellion that you can have little or no idea of such a regime on a normal planet. (591.2) 52:2.2 The average length of this dispensation is around five hundred thousand years, some longer, some shorter. During this era the planet is established in the circuits of the system, and a full quota of seraphic and other celestial helpers is assigned to its administration. The Thought Adjusters come in increasing numbers, and the seraphic guardians amplify their regime of mortal supervision. (591.3) 52:2.3 When the Planetary Prince arrives on a primitive world, the evolved religion of fear and ignorance prevails. The prince and his staff make the first revelations of higher truth and universe organization. These initial presentations of revealed religion are very simple, and they usually pertain to the affairs of the local system. Religion is wholly an evolutionary process prior to the arrival of the Planetary Prince. Subsequently, religion progresses by graduated revelation as well as by evolutionary growth. Each dispensation, each mortal epoch, receives an enlarged presentation of spiritual truth and religious ethics. The evolution of the religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of a world largely determines their rate of spiritual advancement and the extent of religious revelation. (591.4) 52:2.4 This dispensation witnesses a spiritual dawn, and the different races and their various tribes tend to develop specialized systems of religious and philosophic thought. There uniformly run through all of these racial religions two strains: the early fears of primitive men and the later revelations of the Planetary Prince. In some respects Urantians do not seem to have wholly emerged from this stage of planetary evolution. As you pursue this study, you will the more clearly discern how far your world departs from the average course of evolutionary progress and development. (591.5) 52:2.5 But the Planetary Prince is not “the Prince of Peace.” Racial struggles and tribal wars continue over into this dispensation but with diminishing frequency and severity. This is the great age of racial dispersion, and it culminates in a period of intense nationalism. Color is the basis of tribal and national groupings, and the different races often develop separate languages. Each expanding group of mortals tends to seek isolation. This segregation is favored by the existence of many languages. Before the unification of the several races their relentless warfare sometimes results in the obliteration of whole peoples; the orange and green men are particularly subject to such extinction. (591.6) 52:2.6 On average worlds, during the latter part of the prince’s rule, national life begins to replace tribal organization or rather to be superimposed upon the existing tribal groupings. But the great social achievement of the prince’s epoch is the emergence of family life. Heretofore, human relationships have been chiefly tribal; now, the home begins to materialize. (591.7) 52:2.7 This is the dispensation of the realization of sex equality. On some planets the male may rule the female; on others the reverse prevails. During this age normal worlds establish full equality of the sexes, this being preliminary to the fuller realization of the ideals of home life. This is the dawn of the golden age of the home. The idea of tribal rule gradually gives way to the dual concept of national life and family life. (592.1) 52:2.8 During this age agriculture makes its appearance. The growth of the family idea is incompatible with the roving and unsettled life of the hunter. Gradually the practices of settled habitations and the cultivation of the soil become established. The domestication of animals and the development of home arts proceed apace. Upon reaching the apex of biologic evolution, a high level of civilization has been attained, but there is little development of a mechanical order; invention is the characteristic of the succeeding age. (592.2) 52:2.9 The races are purified and brought up to a high state of physical perfection and intellectual strength before the end of this era. The early development of a normal world is greatly helped by the plan of promoting the increase of the higher types of mortals with proportionate curtailment of the lower. And it is the failure of your early peoples to thus discriminate between these types that accounts for the presence of so many defective and degenerate individuals among the present-day Urantia races. (592.3) 52:2.10 One of the great achievements of the age of the prince is this restriction of the multiplication of mentally defective and socially unfit individuals. Long before the times of the arrival of the second Sons, the Adams, most worlds seriously address themselves to the tasks of race purification, something which the Urantia peoples have not even yet seriously undertaken. (592.4) 52:2.11 This problem of race improvement is not such an extensive undertaking when it is attacked at this early date in human evolution. The preceding period of tribal struggles and rugged competition in race survival has weeded out most of the abnormal and defective strains. An idiot does not have much chance of survival in a primitive and warring tribal social organization. It is the false sentiment of your partially perfected civilizations that fosters, protects, and perpetuates the hopelessly defective strains of evolutionary human stocks. (592.5) 52:2.12 It is neither tenderness nor altruism to bestow futile sympathy upon degenerated human beings, unsalvable abnormal and inferior mortals. There exist on even the most normal of the evolutionary worlds sufficient differences between individuals and between numerous social groups to provide for the full exercise of all those noble traits of altruistic sentiment and unselfish mortal ministry without perpetuating the socially unfit and the morally degenerate strains of evolving humanity. There is abundant opportunity for the exercise of tolerance and the function of altruism in behalf of those unfortunate and needy individuals who have not irretrievably lost their moral heritage and forever destroyed their spiritual birthright. 3. Post-Adamic Man (592.6) 52:3.1 When the original impetus of evolutionary life has run its biologic course, when man has reached the apex of animal development, there arrives the second order of sonship, and the second dispensation of grace and ministry is inaugurated. This is true on all evolutionary worlds. When the highest possible level of evolutionary life has been attained, when primitive man has ascended as far as possible in the biologic scale, a Material Son and Daughter always appear on the planet, having been dispatched by the System Sovereign. (593.1) 52:3.2 Thought Adjusters are increasingly bestowed upon the post-Adamic men, and in constantly augmented numbers these mortals attain capacity for subsequent Adjuster fusion. While functioning as descending Sons, the Adams do not possess Adjusters, but their planetary offspring — direct and mixed — become legitimate candidates for the reception, in due time, of the Mystery Monitors. By the termination of the post-Adamic age the planet is in possession of its full quota of celestial ministers; only the fusion Adjusters are not yet universally bestowed. (593.2) 52:3.3 It is the prime purpose of the Adamic regime to influence evolving man to complete the transit from the hunter and herder stage of civilization to that of the agriculturist and horticulturist, to be later supplemented by the appearance of the urban and industrial adjuncts to civilization. Ten thousand years of this dispensation of the biologic uplifters is sufficient to effect a marvelous transformation. Twenty-five thousand years of such an administration of the conjoint wisdom of the Planetary Prince and the Material Sons usually ripens the sphere for the advent of a Magisterial Son. (593.3) 52:3.4 This age usually witnesses the completion of the elimination of the unfit and the still further purification of the racial strains; on normal worlds the defective bestial tendencies are very nearly eliminated from the reproducing stocks of the realm. (593.4) 52:3.5 The Adamic progeny never amalgamate with the inferior strains of the evolutionary races. Neither is it the divine plan for the Planetary Adam or Eve to mate, personally, with the evolutionary peoples. This race-improvement project is the task of their progeny. But the offspring of the Material Son and Daughter are mobilized for generations before the racial-amalgamation ministry is inaugurated. (593.5) 52:3.6 The result of the gift of the Adamic life plasm to the mortal races is an immediate upstepping of intellectual capacity and an acceleration of spiritual progress. There is usually some physical improvement also. On an average world the post-Adamic dispensation is an age of great invention, energy control, and mechanical development. This is the era of the appearance of multiform manufacture and the control of natural forces; it is the golden age of exploration and the final subduing of the planet. Much of the material progress of a world occurs during this time of the inauguration of the development of the physical sciences, just such an epoch as Urantia is now experiencing. Your world is a full dispensation and more behind the average planetary schedule. (593.6) 52:3.7 By the end of the Adamic dispensation on a normal planet the races are practically blended, so that it can be truly proclaimed that “God has made of one blood all the nations,” and that his Son “has made of one color all peoples.” The color of such an amalgamated race is somewhat of an olive shade of the violet hue, the racial “white” of the spheres. (593.7) 52:3.8 Primitive man is for the most part carnivorous; the Material Sons and Daughters do not eat meat, but their offspring within a few generations usually gravitate to the omnivorous level, although whole groups of their descendants sometimes remain nonflesh eaters. This double origin of the post-Adamic races explains how such blended human stocks exhibit anatomic vestiges belonging to both the herbivorous and carnivorous animal groups. (593.8) 52:3.9 Within ten thousand years of racial amalgamation the resultant stocks show varying degrees of anatomic blend, some strains carrying more of the marks of the nonflesh-eating ancestry, others exhibiting more of the distinguishing traits and physical characteristics of their carnivorous evolutionary progenitors. The majority of these world races soon become omnivorous, subsisting upon a wide range of viands from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. (594.1) 52:3.10 The post-Adamic epoch is the dispensation of internationalism. With the near completion of the task of race blending, nationalism wanes, and the brotherhood of man really begins to materialize. Representative government begins to take the place of the monarchial or paternal form of rulership. The educational system becomes world-wide, and gradually the languages of the races give way to the tongue of the violet people. Universal peace and co-operation are seldom attained until the races are fairly well blended, and until they speak a common language. (594.2) 52:3.11 During the closing centuries of the post-Adamic age there develops new interest in art, music, and literature, and this world-wide awakening is the signal for the appearance of a Magisterial Son. The crowning development of this era is the universal interest in intellectual realities, true philosophy. Religion becomes less nationalistic, becomes more and more a planetary affair. New revelations of truth characterize these ages, and the Most Highs of the constellations begin to rule in the affairs of men. Truth is revealed up to the administration of the constellations. (594.3) 52:3.12 Great ethical advancement characterizes this era; the brotherhood of man is the goal of its society. World-wide peace — the cessation of race conflict and national animosity — is the indicator of planetary ripeness for the advent of the third order of sonship, the Magisterial Son. 4. Post-Magisterial Son Man (594.4) 52:4.1 On normal and loyal planets this age opens with the mortal races blended and biologically fit. There are no race or color problems; literally all nations and races are of one blood. The brotherhood of man flourishes, and the nations are learning to live on earth in peace and tranquillity. Such a world stands on the eve of a great and culminating intellectual development. (594.5) 52:4.2 When an evolutionary world becomes thus ripe for the magisterial age, one of the high order of Avonal Sons makes his appearance on a magisterial mission. The Planetary Prince and the Material Sons are of local universe origin; the Magisterial Son hails from Paradise. (594.6) 52:4.3 When the Paradise Avonals come to the mortal spheres on judicial actions, solely as dispensation adjudicators, they are never incarnated. But when they come on magisterial missions, at least the initial one, they are always incarnated, though they do not experience birth, neither do they die the death of the realm. They may live on for generations in those cases where they remain as rulers on certain planets. When their missions are concluded, they yield up their planetary lives and return to their former status of divine sonship. (594.7) 52:4.4 Each new dispensation extends the horizon of revealed religion, and the Magisterial Sons extend the revelation of truth to portray the affairs of the local universe and all its tributaries. (594.8) 52:4.5 After the initial visitation of a Magisterial Son the races soon effect their economic liberation. The daily work required to sustain one’s independence would be represented by two and one-half hours of your time. It is perfectly safe to liberate such ethical and intelligent mortals. Such refined peoples well know how to utilize leisure for self-improvement and planetary advancement. This age witnesses the further purification of the racial stocks by the restriction of reproduction among the less fit and poorly endowed individuals. (595.1) 52:4.6 The political government and social administration of the races continue to improve, self-government being fairly well established by the end of this age. By self-government we refer to the highest type of representative government. Such worlds advance and honor only those leaders and rulers who are most fit to bear social and political responsibilities. (595.2) 52:4.7 During this epoch the majority of the world mortals are Adjuster indwelt. But even yet the bestowal of divine Monitors is not always universal. The Adjusters of fusion destiny are not yet bestowed upon all planetary mortals; it is still necessary for the will creatures to choose the Mystery Monitors. (595.3) 52:4.8 During the closing ages of this dispensation, society begins to return to more simplified forms of living. The complex nature of an advancing civilization is running its course, and mortals are learning to live more naturally and effectively. And this trend increases with each succeeding epoch. This is the age of the flowering of art, music, and higher learning. The physical sciences have already reached their height of development. The termination of this age, on an ideal world, witnesses the fullness of a great religious awakening, a world-wide spiritual enlightenment. And this extensive arousal of the spiritual natures of the races is the signal for the arrival of the bestowal Son and for the inauguration of the fifth mortal epoch. (595.4) 52:4.9 On many worlds it develops that the planet is not made ready for a bestowal Son by one magisterial mission; in that event there will be a second, even a succession of Magisterial Sons, each of whom will advance the races from one dispensation to another until the planet is made ready for the gift of the bestowal Son. On the second and subsequent missions the Magisterial Sons may or may not be incarnated. But no matter how many Magisterial Sons may appear — and they may also come as such after the bestowal Son — the advent of each one marks the end of one dispensation and the beginning of another. (595.5) 52:4.10 These dispensations of the Magisterial Sons cover anywhere from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand years of Urantia time. Sometimes such an epoch is much shorter and in rare instances even longer. But in the fullness of time one of these same Magisterial Sons will be born as the Paradise bestowal Son. 5. Post-Bestowal Son Man (595.6) 52:5.1 When a certain standard of intellectual and spiritual development is attained on an inhabited world, a Paradise bestowal Son always arrives. On normal worlds he does not appear in the flesh until the races have ascended to the highest levels of intellectual development and ethical attainment. But on Urantia the bestowal Son, even your own Creator Son, appeared at the close of the Adamic dispensation, but that is not the usual order of events on the worlds of space. (595.7) 52:5.2 When the worlds have become ripe for spiritualization, the bestowal Son arrives. These Sons always belong to the Magisterial or Avonal order except in that case, once in each local universe, when the Creator Son prepares for his terminal bestowal on some evolutionary world, as occurred when Michael of Nebadon appeared on Urantia to bestow himself upon your mortal races. Only one world in near ten million can enjoy such a gift; all other worlds are spiritually advanced by the bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Avonal order. (596.1) 52:5.3 The bestowal Son arrives on a world of high educational culture and encounters a race spiritually trained and prepared to assimilate advanced teachings and to appreciate the bestowal mission. This is an age characterized by the world-wide pursuit of moral culture and spiritual truth. The mortal passion of this dispensation is the penetration of cosmic reality and communion with spiritual reality. The revelations of truth are extended to include the superuniverse. Entirely new systems of education and government grow up to supplant the crude regimes of former times. The joy of living takes on new color, and the reactions of life are exalted to heavenly heights of tone and timbre. (596.2) 52:5.4 The bestowal Son lives and dies for the spiritual uplift of the mortal races of a world. He establishes the “new and living way”; his life is an incarnation of Paradise truth in mortal flesh, that very truth — even the Spirit of Truth — in the knowledge of which men shall be free. (596.3) 52:5.5 On Urantia the establishment of this “new and living way” was a matter of fact as well as of truth. The isolation of Urantia in the Lucifer rebellion had suspended the procedure whereby mortals can pass, upon death, directly to the shores of the mansion worlds. Before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia all souls slept on until the dispensational or special millennial resurrections. Even Moses was not permitted to go over to the other side until the occasion of a special resurrection, the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia, contesting such a deliverance. But ever since the day of Pentecost, Urantia mortals again may proceed directly to the morontia spheres. (596.4) 52:5.6 Upon the resurrection of a bestowal Son, on the third day after yielding up his incarnated life, he ascends to the right hand of the Universal Father, receives the assurance of the acceptance of the bestowal mission, and returns to the Creator Son at the headquarters of the local universe. Thereupon the bestowal Avonal and the Creator Michael send their joint spirit, the Spirit of Truth, into the bestowal world. This is the occasion when the “spirit of the triumphant Son is poured out upon all flesh.” The Universe Mother Spirit also participates in this bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, and concomitant therewith there issues the bestowal edict of the Thought Adjusters. Thereafter all normal-minded will creatures of that world will receive Adjusters as soon as they attain the age of moral responsibility, of spiritual choice. (596.5) 52:5.7 If such a bestowal Avonal should return to a world after the bestowal mission, he would not incarnate but would come “in glory with the seraphic hosts.” (596.6) 52:5.8 The postbestowal Son age may extend from ten thousand to a hundred thousand years. There is no arbitrary time allotted to any of these dispensational eras. This is a time of great ethical and spiritual progress. Under the spiritual influence of these ages, human character undergoes tremendous transformations and experiences phenomenal development. It becomes possible to put the golden rule into practical operation. The teachings of Jesus are really applicable to a mortal world which has had the preliminary training of the prebestowal Sons with their dispensations of character ennoblement and culture augmentation. (596.7) 52:5.9 During this era the problems of disease and delinquency are virtually solved. Degeneracy has already been largely eliminated by selective reproduction. Disease has been practically mastered through the high resistant qualities of the Adamic strains and by the intelligent and world-wide application of the discoveries of the physical sciences of preceding ages. The average length of life, during this period, climbs well above the equivalent of three hundred years of Urantia time. (597.1) 52:5.10 Throughout this epoch there is a gradual lessening of governmental supervision. True self-government is beginning to function; fewer and fewer restrictive laws are necessary. The military branches of national resistance are passing away; the era of international harmony is really arriving. There are many nations, mostly determined by land distribution, but only one race, one language, and one religion. Mortal affairs are almost, but not quite, utopian. This truly is a great and glorious age! 6. Urantia’s Post-Bestowal Age (597.2) 52:6.1 The bestowal Son is the Prince of Peace. He arrives with the message, “Peace on earth and good will among men.” On normal worlds this is a dispensation of world-wide peace; the nations no more learn war. But such salutary influences did not attend the coming of your bestowal Son, Christ Michael. Urantia is not proceeding in the normal order. Your world is out of step in the planetary procession. Your Master, when on earth, warned his disciples that his advent would not bring the usual reign of peace on Urantia. He distinctly told them that there would be “wars and rumors of wars,” and that nation would rise against nation. At another time he said, “Think not that I have come to bring peace upon earth.” (597.3) 52:6.2 Even on normal evolutionary worlds the realization of the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Urantia such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a spiritually isolated sphere. Religious revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood on Urantia. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments: (597.4) 52:6.3 1. Social fraternity. Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts and fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play. Development of a common language and the multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious philosophers. (597.5) 52:6.4 2. Intellectual cross-fertilization. Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love. (597.6) 52:6.5 3. Ethical awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule. (598.1) 52:6.6 4. Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal — destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival. (598.2) 52:6.7 5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man. (598.3) 52:6.8 If you could be transplanted from your backward and confused world to some normal planet now in the postbestowal Son age, you
The Origins of Worship (944.1) 85:0.1 PRIMITIVE religion had a biologic origin, a natural evolutionary development, aside from moral associations and apart from all spiritual influences. The higher animals have fears but no illusions, hence no religion. Man creates his primitive religions out of his fears and by means of his illusions. (944.2) 85:0.2 In the evolution of the human species, worship in its primitive manifestations appears long before the mind of man is capable of formulating the more complex concepts of life now and in the hereafter which deserve to be called religion. Early religion was wholly intellectual in nature and was entirely predicated on associational circumstances. The objects of worship were altogether suggestive; they consisted of the things of nature which were close at hand, or which loomed large in the commonplace experience of the simple-minded primitive Urantians. (944.3) 85:0.3 When religion once evolved beyond nature worship, it acquired roots of spirit origin but was nevertheless always conditioned by the social environment. As nature worship developed, man’s concepts envisioned a division of labor in the supermortal world; there were nature spirits for lakes, trees, waterfalls, rain, and hundreds of other ordinary terrestrial phenomena. (944.4) 85:0.4 At one time or another mortal man has worshiped everything on the face of the earth, including himself. He has also worshiped about everything imaginable in the sky and beneath the surface of the earth. Primitive man feared all manifestations of power; he worshiped every natural phenomenon he could not comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatly impressed the expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life are still termed “acts of God” and “mysterious dispensations of Providence.” 1. Worship of Stones and Hills (944.5) 85:1.1 The first object to be worshiped by evolving man was a stone. Today the Kateri people of southern India still worship a stone, as do numerous tribes in northern India. Jacob slept on a stone because he venerated it; he even anointed it. Rachel concealed a number of sacred stones in her tent. (944.6) 85:1.2 Stones first impressed early man as being out of the ordinary because of the manner in which they would so suddenly appear on the surface of a cultivated field or pasture. Men failed to take into account either erosion or the results of the overturning of soil. Stones also greatly impressed early peoples because of their frequent resemblance to animals. The attention of civilized man is arrested by numerous stone formations in the mountains which so much resemble the faces of animals and even men. But the most profound influence was exerted by meteoric stones which primitive humans beheld hurtling through the atmosphere in flaming grandeur. The shooting star was awesome to early man, and he easily believed that such blazing streaks marked the passage of a spirit on its way to earth. No wonder men were led to worship such phenomena, especially when they subsequently discovered the meteors. And this led to greater reverence for all other stones. In Bengal many worship a meteor which fell to earth in A.D. 1880. (945.1) 85:1.3 All ancient clans and tribes had their sacred stones, and most modern peoples manifest a degree of veneration for certain types of stones — their jewels. A group of five stones was reverenced in India; in Greece it was a cluster of thirty; among the red men it was usually a circle of stones. The Romans always threw a stone into the air when invoking Jupiter. In India even to this day a stone can be used as a witness. In some regions a stone may be employed as a talisman of the law, and by its prestige an offender can be haled into court. But simple mortals do not always identify Deity with an object of reverent ceremony. Such fetishes are many times mere symbols of the real object of worship. (945.2) 85:1.4 The ancients had a peculiar regard for holes in stones. Such porous rocks were supposed to be unusually efficacious in curing diseases. Ears were not perforated to carry stones, but the stones were put in to keep the ear holes open. Even in modern times superstitious persons make holes in coins. In Africa the natives make much ado over their fetish stones. In fact, among all backward tribes and peoples stones are still held in superstitious veneration. Stone worship is even now widespread over the world. The tombstone is a surviving symbol of images and idols which were carved in stone in connection with beliefs in ghosts and the spirits of departed fellow beings. (945.3) 85:1.5 Hill worship followed stone worship, and the first hills to be venerated were large stone formations. It presently became the custom to believe that the gods inhabited the mountains, so that high elevations of land were worshiped for this additional reason. As time passed, certain mountains were associated with certain gods and therefore became holy. The ignorant and superstitious aborigines believed that caves led to the underworld, with its evil spirits and demons, in contrast with the mountains, which were identified with the later evolving concepts of good spirits and deities. 2. Worship of Plants and Trees (945.4) 85:2.1 Plants were first feared and then worshiped because of the intoxicating liquors which were derived therefrom. Primitive man believed that intoxication rendered one divine. There was supposed to be something unusual and sacred about such an experience. Even in modern times alcohol is known as “spirits.” (945.5) 85:2.2 Early man looked upon sprouting grain with dread and superstitious awe. The Apostle Paul was not the first to draw profound spiritual lessons from, and predicate religious beliefs on, the sprouting grain. (945.6) 85:2.3 The cults of tree worship are among the oldest religious groups. All early marriages were held under the trees, and when women desired children, they would sometimes be found out in the forest affectionately embracing a sturdy oak. Many plants and trees were venerated because of their real or fancied medicinal powers. The savage believed that all chemical effects were due to the direct activity of supernatural forces. (945.7) 85:2.4 Ideas about tree spirits varied greatly among different tribes and races. Some trees were indwelt by kindly spirits; others harbored the deceptive and cruel. The Finns believed that most trees were occupied by kind spirits. The Swiss long mistrusted the trees, believing they contained tricky spirits. The inhabitants of India and eastern Russia regard the tree spirits as being cruel. The Patagonians still worship trees, as did the early Semites. Long after the Hebrews ceased tree worship, they continued to venerate their various deities in the groves. Except in China, there once existed a universal cult of the tree of life. (946.1) 85:2.5 The belief that water or precious metals beneath the earth’s surface can be detected by a wooden divining rod is a relic of the ancient tree cults. The Maypole, the Christmas tree, and the superstitious practice of rapping on wood perpetuate certain of the ancient customs of tree worship and the later-day tree cults. (946.2) 85:2.6 Many of these earliest forms of nature veneration became blended with the later evolving techniques of worship, but the earliest mind-adjutant-activated types of worship were functioning long before the newly awakening religious nature of mankind became fully responsive to the stimulus of spiritual influences. 3. The Worship of Animals (946.3) 85:3.1 Primitive man had a peculiar and fellow feeling for the higher animals. His ancestors had lived with them and even mated with them. In southern Asia it was early believed that the souls of men came back to earth in animal form. This belief was a survival of the still earlier practice of worshiping animals. (946.4) 85:3.2 Early men revered the animals for their power and their cunning. They thought the keen scent and the farseeing eyes of certain creatures betokened spirit guidance. The animals have all been worshiped by one race or another at one time or another. Among such objects of worship were creatures that were regarded as half human and half animal, such as centaurs and mermaids. (946.5) 85:3.3 The Hebrews worshiped serpents down to the days of King Hezekiah, and the Hindus still maintain friendly relations with their house snakes. The Chinese worship of the dragon is a survival of the snake cults. The wisdom of the serpent was a symbol of Greek medicine and is still employed as an emblem by modern physicians. The art of snake charming has been handed down from the days of the female shamans of the snake love cult, who, as the result of daily snake bites, became immune, in fact, became genuine venom addicts and could not get along without this poison. (946.6) 85:3.4 The worship of insects and other animals was promoted by a later misinterpretation of the golden rule — doing to others (every form of life) as you would be done by. The ancients once believed that all winds were produced by the wings of birds and therefore both feared and worshiped all winged creatures. The early Nordics thought that eclipses were caused by a wolf that devoured a portion of the sun or moon. The Hindus often show Vishnu with a horse’s head. Many times an animal symbol stands for a forgotten god or a vanished cult. Early in evolutionary religion the lamb became the typical sacrificial animal and the dove the symbol of peace and love. (946.7) 85:3.5 In religion, symbolism may be either good or bad just to the extent that the symbol does or does not displace the original worshipful idea. And symbolism must not be confused with direct idolatry wherein the material object is directly and actually worshiped. 4. Worship of the Elements (946.8) 85:4.1 Mankind has worshiped earth, air, water, and fire. The primitive races venerated springs and worshiped rivers. Even now in Mongolia there flourishes an influential river cult. Baptism became a religious ceremonial in Babylon, and the Greeks practiced the annual ritual bath. It was easy for the ancients to imagine that the spirits dwelt in the bubbling springs, gushing fountains, flowing rivers, and raging torrents. Moving waters vividly impressed these simple minds with beliefs of spirit animation and supernatural power. Sometimes a drowning man would be refused succor for fear of offending some river god.* (947.1) 85:4.2 Many things and numerous events have functioned as religious stimuli to different peoples in different ages. A rainbow is yet worshiped by many of the hill tribes of India. In both India and Africa the rainbow is thought to be a gigantic celestial snake; Hebrews and Christians regard it as “the bow of promise.” Likewise, influences regarded as beneficent in one part of the world may be looked upon as malignant in other regions. The east wind is a god in South America, for it brings rain; in India it is a devil because it brings dust and causes drought. The ancient Bedouins believed that a nature spirit produced the sand whirls, and even in the times of Moses belief in nature spirits was strong enough to insure their perpetuation in Hebrew theology as angels of fire, water, and air. (947.2) 85:4.3 Clouds, rain, and hail have all been feared and worshiped by numerous primitive tribes and by many of the early nature cults. Windstorms with thunder and lightning overawed early man. He was so impressed with these elemental disturbances that thunder was regarded as the voice of an angry god. The worship of fire and the fear of lightning were linked together and were widespread among many early groups. (947.3) 85:4.4 Fire was mixed up with magic in the minds of primitive fear-ridden mortals. A devotee of magic will vividly remember one positive chance result in the practice of his magic formulas, while he nonchalantly forgets a score of negative results, out-and-out failures. Fire reverence reached its height in Persia, where it long persisted. Some tribes worshiped fire as a deity itself; others revered it as the flaming symbol of the purifying and purging spirit of their venerated deities. Vestal virgins were charged with the duty of watching sacred fires, and in the twentieth century candles still burn as a part of the ritual of many religious services. 5. Worship of the Heavenly Bodies (947.4) 85:5.1 The worship of rocks, hills, trees, and animals naturally developed up through fearful veneration of the elements to the deification of the sun, moon, and stars. In India and elsewhere the stars were regarded as the glorified souls of great men who had departed from the life in the flesh. The Chaldean star cultists considered themselves to be the children of the sky father and the earth mother. (947.5) 85:5.2 Moon worship preceded sun worship. Veneration of the moon was at its height during the hunting era, while sun worship became the chief religious ceremony of the subsequent agricultural ages. Solar worship first took extensive root in India, and there it persisted the longest. In Persia sun veneration gave rise to the later Mithraic cult. Among many peoples the sun was regarded as the ancestor of their kings. The Chaldeans put the sun in the center of “the seven circles of the universe.” Later civilizations honored the sun by giving its name to the first day of the week. (947.6) 85:5.3 The sun god was supposed to be the mystic father of the virgin-born sons of destiny who ever and anon were thought to be bestowed as saviors upon favored races. These supernatural infants were always put adrift upon some sacred river to be rescued in an extraordinary manner, after which they would grow up to become miraculous personalities and the deliverers of their peoples. 6. Worship of Man (948.1) 85:6.1 Having worshiped everything else on the face of the earth and in the heavens above, man has not hesitated to honor himself with such adoration. The simple-minded savage makes no clear distinction between beasts, men, and gods. (948.2) 85:6.2 Early man regarded all unusual persons as superhuman, and he so feared such beings as to hold them in reverential awe; to some degree he literally worshiped them. Even having twins was regarded as being either very lucky or very unlucky. Lunatics, epileptics, and the feeble-minded were often worshiped by their normal-minded fellows, who believed that such abnormal beings were indwelt by the gods. Priests, kings, and prophets were worshiped; the holy men of old were looked upon as inspired by the deities. (948.3) 85:6.3 Tribal chiefs died and were deified. Later, distinguished souls passed on and were sainted. Unaided evolution never originated gods higher than the glorified, exalted, and evolved spirits of deceased humans. In early evolution religion creates its own gods. In the course of revelation the Gods formulate religion. Evolutionary religion creates its gods in the image and likeness of mortal man; revelatory religion seeks to evolve and transform mortal man into the image and likeness of God. (948.4) 85:6.4 The ghost gods, who are of supposed human origin, should be distinguished from the nature gods, for nature worship did evolve a pantheon — nature spirits elevated to the position of gods. The nature cults continued to develop along with the later appearing ghost cults, and each exerted an influence upon the other. Many religious systems embraced a dual concept of deity, nature gods and ghost gods; in some theologies these concepts are confusingly intertwined, as is illustrated by Thor, a ghost hero who was also master of the lightning. (948.5) 85:6.5 But the worship of man by man reached its height when temporal rulers commanded such veneration from their subjects and, in substantiation of such demands, claimed to have descended from deity. 7. The Adjutants of Worship and Wisdom (948.6) 85:7.1 Nature worship may seem to have arisen naturally and spontaneously in the minds of primitive men and women, and so it did; but there was operating all this time in these same primitive minds the sixth adjutant spirit, which had been bestowed upon these peoples as a directing influence of this phase of human evolution. And this spirit was constantly stimulating the worship urge of the human species, no matter how primitive its first manifestations might be. The spirit of worship gave definite origin to the human impulse to worship, notwithstanding that animal fear motivated the expression of worshipfulness, and that its early practice became centered upon objects of nature. (948.7) 85:7.2 You must remember that feeling, not thinking, was the guiding and controlling influence in all evolutionary development. To the primitive mind there is little difference between fearing, shunning, honoring, and worshiping. (948.8) 85:7.3 When the worship urge is admonished and directed by wisdom — meditative and experiential thinking — it then begins to develop into the phenomenon of real religion. When the seventh adjutant spirit, the spirit of wisdom, achieves effective ministration, then in worship man begins to turn away from nature and natural objects to the God of nature and to the eternal Creator of all things natural. (949.1) 85:7.4 [Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.]
AstronomyCast 193: Astronomy with the Unaided Eye
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