The Urantia Book on "Cults" - Part 2

The nice thing about having people read something that they are allowed to either believe or not believe makes the UB very appealing. It is a work of such eloquence, such exquisite depth in its very simplicity (iow, packing many levels of meaning in each sentence); so much so, that re-reading former passages works in tandem with the ministry of the TA to ratchet-up the capacity of getting more and more meaning with each new read and it has such a self-consistency that it MAKES a reader WANT to believe in its authorship--its reality for being what it says it is: a Revelation by superhuman personalities, and thence its message rings clear and true.  The secret "weapon" of the UB to gain readership is the Thought Adjusters, common in all normal-minded (whatever that really means) people.

Just like many things we find in the UB, the WORDS do become less clearly defined (in the Webster's sense) over time, but surely the concepts persist as living truths when reconstituted by the human mind, and its unfailing Thought Adjuster.

Language IS becoming a larger and larger barrier. Not many young folks would know what the word "hither" means, though it is used eight times in the UB, with "hither and yon" being used four of those times together. To a young person of today, "yon" is something you do when you're sleepy in church.   

It is just an example of how things have changed.

"Idiot" (another example) is used instead of today's PC term, "mentally disabled" (of whom we are admonished to try to "disfellowship" from humanity). Bill Sadler uses this term (idiot) many times in his 1958 lecture, but there is no way in hell that a modern UB lecturer would say such a thing, even though the UB uses it. It is a matter of subjective discrimination in the presentation of a text that IS aging. And people do well to be sensitive in this regard outside the UB community bubble. We can be a little less sensitive here at UBRON since we are all mostly well- read in both UB and non-UB sources. We (hopefully) can overlook and differentiate the modern memes when the corresponding word is used in UB quotes.

But ANY UB quote taken out of context lends itself to HIGHLY subjective interpretation. One quote SEEMS to negate another quote. But for the person who has read ALL the quotes in the form and order that the book is written, is not as likely to misinterpret their overall message.

When taken in the context of 1934-1955, these verbal changes are well understood. But the language changes so fast that a vigilance about cultural assumptions is really a requirement in philosophical discussion even at UBRON.org (that is what is nice and progressive about English over most other languages--it grows, along with languages like Japanese which also allows for the adoption [and adaptation] of the concepts and words from other languages).

In the last 50 years though, these other languages are taking English's hint and finding ways of expanding themselves--often to adopt more English terms, actually. English is the most progressive language on earth and, in modified form, will surely become (is already becoming) the universal language--much more-so than 60 years ago. Naturally, this development was anticipated by the Revelators, therefore, why the UB IS in English.

The UB is careful to be diplomatic regarding sensitive issues of how people follow their belief systems--personal or group. It stretches its effort very ingeniously to speak to whatever level of spiritual growth the religionist finds her/himself in. To the church lover, it shows the value of church. To the Personal Religionist (the folks who Jesus sought to bring together) it shows the value - in greater frequency than support for the church-oriented view, as if to be gently steering us into the more personal goal of spiritual attainment--soul growth - of it being OK to let the groups do their group communion, while emphasizing the superior model of inner communion.

I don't think I specified very clearly what I meant by "anti-cult" in the last post.  So, let me have another crack at it. To answer the question about whether the UB is completely anti-cult, one must divide the concept implied in the question onto multiple logic levels, I believe. And we would all benefit from not overgeneralizing ANY stance the UB takes on ANY issue. The book is an example of a very high-quality tolerance for the half-perfected age we are living in, in just about every way.

1) A CULT AS COMPLETLY SUPPORTED BY THE UB - If "cult" is taken in the UB sense (as any organized religion), then surely (as I mentioned and so does the UB) a WORLD WIDE cult - appropriate to all that I highlighted regarding the promotion of individual spiritual growth, based on the inner leading of the Father fragment - is completely supported. When the whole world recognizes this Plan of individual soul growth through judicial choosing of the Father's will by each human, and thence the loving service to one's fellow individuals, a church of unimagined usefulness and high spiritual unity WILL come to fill the place of the thousands of faiths that now compete for group membership. The UB seems unequivocal about this point. I guess I don't see it as a paradox or inconsistent in any way. The UB is in support of a FUTURE cult--a "Mankind Religion."     

2) A CULT AS NEITHER SUPPORTED NOR DISCOURAGED BY THE UB - In our current state of mixed personal and group faith systems, the UB may be said to neither be anti-cult or pro-cult. It simply clarifies the negatives and positives, thus allowing philosophically for both personal and group religion. The blue quote in my essay (the one promoting tolerance by the non-ritual-minded for the ritual-minded types of truth seekers) is the perfect example of the UB's attitude toward our PRESENT situation--the evolutionary steps toward a "Mankind Religion."     

3) A CULT AS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE UB - If "cult" is taken in the David Koresh/Jim Jones sense of latter day phraseology and meme- development, then the UB most certainly would be AGAINST this idea, as it exemplifies ALL negative aspects of group faith, even killing its own deluded membership sometimes; well-ahead of what they could have achieved as separate inner God-Will seekers, and humanity- servers. This is a definite (in my mind) "anti-cult" stance, indicating that the group religious systems of the PAST (see the problems mentioned in the UB about Paul's efforts to convert the world through heavy-handed Catholicism)--only serve NOW to stultify individual growth and are examples of what will NOT lead to a "Mankind Religion."     

4) THE CULT AS AN INTEGRATABLE CONCEPT BY THE UB - Integrating these three divergent attitudes above seems a non-problem as long they are taken, each in their own way--ALWAYS, and not mixed. In this way the UB can be understood to be meaning the following (working backward through the last three examples above): It supports the reasons for and positive evolutionary value of past cults, inspires people to prefer the individual's loyalty to inward spiritual growth over outward religious cult loyalty in the present, and encourages those farther- seeing individual Personal Religionists, to keep in mind that a future cult of ALL individuals who are God-knowing and neighbor- serving is inevitable, but only when its application is voluntary and universal.

In my opinion, there will be a world unified by spiritually enlightened people BEFORE they ALL choose to codify that spirituality as a group-effort. One gets the impression (from a neighboring planet) that churches are not the norm on inhabited planets, YET the one-day organization of a religious/philosophy taken for granted, will arise on each world and become universally accepted. On the neighboring planet it means the universal acceptance by the citizens of that one nation to be spiritually unified.

Unfortunately, it looks like they are about to make the old Urantian (Christian and Muslim) mistake of pushing this belief system upon their less developed neighbors.

On Urantia development of a planetary church means using the stepping stones provided by the evolutionary means of many groups as they slowly liberate their individual members to all become ONE group.

Urantia is far ahead of its neighbor in this regard, as our international community is much more closely bound economically, and therefore culturally. Material items enjoyed by prosperous cultures are sought by less prosperous ones through international trade on our world, and no culture uses material items that are not ultimately associated with art, music and literature in some form. Art, music and literature are the vanguard of ideology, philosophy, and even of spirituality. India, for example, is intrigued by Western-style democracy, corporate structure, and the material wealth. That they trade back items with their own cultural attachments and accessories, means that America (for example) receives back Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, ornate art and beautiful classical Indian and even Indo-rock music. So it is similar with all trade at this time among nations. This is a very wonderful thing... or it WILL be when the service motive replaces the profit motive.

Also, the military umbrella provided by superpowers is politically useful in this inter-exchange, only when it becomes more of a peace-keeping police force under the authority of the UN. International war is diminishing in its destructive aspects. Our world is a rather tightly-gathered swarm of relatively developed nations, unlike our neighboring planet. Even if America or Europe is not as advanced as the island nation of the neighboring world, our WHOLE world is probably much more poised to find international peace, accelerated trade, cultural exchange...and even (after these things have come about) a worldwide religion.

Yet, the force that trumps ALL other factors in the growing together of the nations has got to be global communication. The advances in communication have a profound influence that is not even fully understood by our current generations. Nothing in the history of mankind, has ever been a bigger potentiator of political, economic and philosophic unification.

The things that I have seen attract new readers are...   

1) Non promotion of the UB unless it is asked about. This is a long- standing and extremely helpful "rule" that most UB readers understand remarkably well.     

2) The recognition that the UB is scientific as well as religious. This has a real drawing power to the modern, technologically minded, truth-seeker.     

3) The differences between the UB presentation of Jesus' religion vs Christianity's. And though it is disheartening to see pictures and and emphases ABOUT Jesus at sites like TruthBook.org, the UB has great power to straighten out these errors perpetuated by its so- called associated organizations and faith-based groups, all by itself.

The biggest benefit of the churchification efforts in the UB community is the bringing of the UB to OPEN minded folks, who can there and then choose for themselves whether they need the rituals offered by Behz Sarmast's and Paula Thompson's strategy. The only hitch is that these self-appointed Urantia Book ministers must not close the minds of these people who come to the UB, by presenting them with silly religious fetishes, before the new readers have the chance to allow themselves to open their own minds with the UB.

The biggest detractor is the first impression of potential UB readers by seeing white Jesus-es plastered all over the place in certain UB organizations, like TruthBook.org. Many potential readers don't like it because they are either (i) Christians who love Christ but are looking for an alternative to the soul-limiting features of Christian religious groups and are turned away from the UB without even reading it because of the perception that it is just another Christian group, or (ii) non-Christians will be put-off for the emphasis ABOUT Jesus before ever reading the truthful Gospel OF Jesus. Even Jesus deflected over-emphasis on himself, in favor of HighLighting the need for emphasis on his (our) Father. He would not be pleased about this over-emphasis on himself being prosecuted, especially by FER-believers.

Do remember: Jesus was a man, but he is no longer (and probably never was) a bearded white guy with blue eyes. He is a Creator Son of Paradise, our Local Universe Father. That he is remembered by the symbol of the cross is MOST unfortunate. It is a symbol of death. It is a Urantian embarrassment. I understand its value for reminding people that we had to nail our loving Master to a tree in order to have him resurrect himself and prove all that he taught. It is a symbol that we had to SEE wonders in order to believe. The Three Circles is a symbol that can serve (were it completely legal to do so) to replace the gore of the cross, with the Infinity of the Trinity, of Whom Michael is a direct descendant. After all, it is the symbol of HIS banner, not, btw, to be bartered out by the Urantia Foundation, but that is for another day.

The rising light of the Circles will replace the falling night of the cross.  A recent mention of a popular musician in the UB movement, and his religious form of ministry was discussed. I love this musician, he is a real man of action, with a wonderful and loving soul. However, I have noticed in my conversations with him, that he has a bit of a moralizing bent to his ministry. He is somewhat traditionally bound by the birthmark of religious group sensibility (or perhaps lack thereof). He has occasionally criticized the "rude behavior" of some of his fans, because they used swear words in FB posts, neglecting to appreciate what these folks INTENDED vs the words they chose. Their INTENTIONS were honorable, support and humorous.  But the words they used were focused on instead.  This is no big deal of course. The man is blessing to the mission of the FER.

But it shows how even one of the most progressive heroes of our movement - he is a strong cannabis supporter too - has a reverence for God that seems to overspill its edges and become expectations for a certain kind of behavior from others around him--one that meets his personal standards. That all of us are guilty of that from time to time, we could use the humility of dealing with our own shortcomings FIRST, before expecting others to deal correctly with their own. Ministers, in particular, are EXPERTS at delivering guilt directly into those who look up to them. This is the poison that is destroying today's organized religions. But it is NOT a sin. And it is not a fault either. It is pure human nature. It is just that it corrodes the need for an "appointed" person to lead one's spiritual search. So the quicker that ministers stop revealing their own beliefs and begin fostering the development of the independent belief systems of those around them, they succeed in the work of God, though they destroy the work of group maintenance. Oh well, some thing must be sacrificed. Better to sacrifice a non-personal group than even one personal soul.

Ministers have gone from "we are the chosen people" to "I am the chosen minister" just exactly as fast as the groups began to break into sects... Continue the logical sect-break-up theory, and you get individuals who are no longer part of any group but their own non- named, non-formalized group. The ultimate and most basic "sect" of any religion could then be said to be the personal belief system of the individual. THAT is why readers of the UB are special. We are a clumsy, yet noble, attempt at TRUE group religion. Yet, we should be satisfied in that fact at this very primitive time. We are already the final church in misty form. It has only one expectation of each member: find the truth from ALL sources (not just the UB), and be only bound by your fact of readership of the UB, and no other official ties are needed (no fellowships, no Uranita religious orders of ANY kind) for our congregation to thrive; maybe even to transform the world into a place that will ASK for a Religion of Urantia.

I have to agree that when my old roommate (only teasing and in jest) answered my former girlfriend's question of what Urantia is by saying "Oh, it's a cult," it ruined her first impression permanently (she was easily sway-able anyway) of the UB.

Now even ten years later, when I got back in touch with her at FB, she saw all my involvement in UB-related activities and sent me a private message that said, "I see your still doing the Urantia thing. I try to stay away from stuff like that. Once you take that path you lose your ability to have control over your life. Why can't you be happy just being YOU?" To which I simply let her know that the UB is not a flash in the pan, but a philosophical source that has been in my family for three generations. I told her it is NOT a cult; that its readers are anti- cult in not promoting the book, unless someone specifically asks about it. I let her know that we only are interested in readers who WANT to read and that most UB readers also are encouraged to seek out the best info from ALL philosophical sources. We don't push. And it is NOT a religious organization.

In her ignorance, she would actually think I was a liar if she were to visit TruthBook.org, or Behz's site. I don't like that and I will fight against the erroneous first impression.

On the other hand, my current roommate (who is not a girlfriend) frequently asks me about the UB. Because I always STOP talking about it at very interesting parts.  This sparks her interest even more. Two days ago we had a two hour discussion about the TA and Adam and Eve. She has been listening religiously (ha, ha) to the three CD's I burned for her about the Adamic Regime and is fascinated by the origin of the Secondary Midwayers. She believes that I came into her life just when she needed to know this information. And I believe she came into my life just when I needed to have some personal face-to-face UB fellowship. Win...win!

It seems to me that our focus as UB readers - knowing all of the above - should be on immediately pushing for the social and economic changes (based on a new and dynamic philosophy for the human family) that will allow all individuals to find the Will of the Spark inside themselves (by becoming less materially minded) and THEN to, by a common social-will, voluntarily join together in a planet-wide church of the Universal Father of all Religions, in spiritual unification; an actual human organization that will never diminish, leading to the greatest religious destiny of all: Peace on Earth, under God, in Light and Life.