682 lines
40 KiB
Plaintext
682 lines
40 KiB
Plaintext
Urantia Book Paper 65 The Overcontrol Of Evolution
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SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
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: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
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Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
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Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
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The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
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Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
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Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
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The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
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The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
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The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
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The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
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Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
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Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
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Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
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Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
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In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
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Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
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Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
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Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
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The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
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Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
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Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
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...
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Paper 65 The Overcontrol Of Evolution
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Introduction
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BASIC evolutionary material life--premind life--is the formulation of the
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Master Physical Controllers and the life-impartation ministry of the Seven
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Master Spirits in conjunction with the active ministration of the ordained Life
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Carriers. As a result of the co-ordinate function of this threefold creativity
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there develops organismal physical capacity for mind--material mechanisms for
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intelligent reaction to external environmental stimuli and, later on, to
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internal stimuli, influences taking origin in the organismal mind itself.
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There are, then, three distinct levels of life production and evolution:
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1. The physical-energy domain--mind-capacity production.
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2. The mind ministry of the adjutant spirits--impinging upon spirit capacity.
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3. The spirit endowment of mortal mind--culminating in Thought Adjuster
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bestowal.
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The mechanical-nonteachable levels of organismal environmental response are the
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domains of the physical controllers. The adjutant mind-spirits activate and
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regulate the adaptative or nonmechanical-teachable types of mind--those
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response mechanisms of organisms capable of learning from experience. And as
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the spirit adjutants thus manipulate mind potentials, so do the Life Carriers
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exercise considerable discretionary control over the environmental aspects of
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evolutionary processes right up to the time of the appearance of human
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will--the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship him.
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It is the integrated functioning of the Life Carriers, the physical
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controllers, and the spirit adjutants that conditions the course of organic
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evolution on the inhabited worlds. And this is why evolution--on Urantia or
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elsewhere--is always purposeful and never accidental.
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1. LIFE CARRIER FUNCTIONS
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The Life Carriers are endowed with potentials of personality metamorphosis
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which but few orders of creatures possess. These Sons of the local universe are
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capable of functioning in three diverse phases of being. They ordinarily
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perform their duties as mid-phase Sons, that being the state of their origin.
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But a Life Carrier in such a stage of existence could not possibly function in
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the electrochemical domains as a fabricator of physical energies and material
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particles into units of living existence.
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Life Carriers are able to function and do function on the following three
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levels:
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1. The physical level of electrochemistry.
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2. The usual mid-phase of quasi-morontial existence.
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3. The advanced semispiritual level.
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top of page - 731
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When the Life Carriers make ready to engage in life implantation, and after
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they have selected the sites for such an undertaking, they summon the archangel
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commission of Life Carrier transmutation. This group consists of ten orders of
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diverse personalities, including the physical controllers and their associates,
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and is presided over by the chief of archangels, who acts in this capacity by
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the mandate of Gabriel and with the permission of the Ancients of Days. When
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these beings are properly encircuited, they can effect such modifications in
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the Life Carriers as will enable them immediately to function on the physical
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levels of electrochemistry.
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After the life patterns have been formulated and the material organizations
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have been duly completed, the supermaterial forces concerned in life
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propagation become forthwith active, and life is existent. Whereupon the Life
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Carriers are immediately returned to their normal mid-phase of personality
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existence, in which estate they can manipulate the living units and maneuver
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the evolving organisms, even though they are shorn of all ability to
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organize--create--new patterns of living matter.
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After organic evolution has run a certain course and free will of the human
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type has appeared in the highest evolving organisms, the Life Carriers must
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either leave the planet or take renunciation vows; that is, they must pledge
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themselves to refrain from all attempts further to influence the course of
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organic evolution. And when such vows are voluntarily taken by those Life
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Carriers who choose to remain on the planet as future advisers to those who
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shall be intrusted with the fostering of the newly evolved will creatures,
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there is summoned a commission of twelve, presided over by the chief of the
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Evening Stars, acting by authority of the System Sovereign and with permission
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of Gabriel; and forthwith these Life Carriers are transmuted to the third phase
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of personality existence--the semispiritual level of being. And I have
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functioned on Urantia in this third phase of existence ever since the times of
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Andon and Fonta.
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We look forward to a time when the universe may be settled in light and life,
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to a possible fourth stage of being wherein we shall be wholly spiritual, but
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it has never been revealed to us by what technique we may attain this desirable
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and advanced estate.
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2. THE EVOLUTIONARY PANORAMA
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The story of man's ascent from seaweed to the lordship of earthly creation is
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indeed a romance of biologic struggle and mind survival. Man's primordial
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ancestors were literally the slime and ooze of the ocean bed in the sluggish
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and warm-water bays and lagoons of the vast shore lines of the ancient inland
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seas, those very waters in which the Life Carriers established the three
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independent life implantations on Urantia.
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Very few species of the early types of marine vegetation that participated in
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those epochal changes which resulted in the animallike borderland organisms are
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in existence today. The sponges are the survivors of one of these early midway
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types, those organisms through which the gradual transition from the vegetable
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to the animal took place. These early transition forms, while not identical
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with modern sponges, were much like them; they were true borderline
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organisms--neither vegetable nor animal--but they eventually led to the
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development of the true animal forms of life.
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top of page - 732
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The bacteria, simple vegetable organisms of a very primitive nature, are very
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little changed from the early dawn of life; they even exhibit a degree of
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retrogression in their parasitic behavior. Many of the fungi also represent a
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retrograde movement in evolution, being plants which have lost their
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chlorophyll-making ability and have become more or less parasitic. The majority
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of disease-causing bacteria and their auxiliary virus bodies really belong to
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this group of renegade parasitic fungi. During the intervening ages all of the
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vast kingdom of plant life has evolved from ancestors from which the bacteria
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have also descended.
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The higher protozoan type of animal life soon appeared, and appeared suddenly.
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And from these far-distant times the ameba, the typical single-celled animal
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organism, has come on down but little modified. He disports himself today much
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as he did when he was the last and greatest achievement in life evolution. This
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minute creature and his protozoan cousins are to the animal creation what
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bacteria are to the plant kingdom; they represent the survival of the first
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early evolutionary steps in life differentiation together with failure of
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subsequent development.
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Before long the early single-celled animal types associated themselves in
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communities, first on the plan of the Volvox and presently along the lines of
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the Hydra and jellyfish. Still later there evolved the starfish, stone lilies,
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sea urchins, sea cucumbers, centipedes, insects, spiders, crustaceans, and the
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closely related groups of earthworms and leeches, soon followed by the
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mollusks--the oyster, octopus, and snail. Hundreds upon hundreds of species
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intervened and perished; mention is made only of those which survived the long,
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long struggle. Such nonprogressive specimens, together with the later appearing
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fish family, today represent the stationary types of early and lower animals,
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branches of the tree of life which failed to progress.
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The stage was thus set for the appearance of the first backboned animals, the
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fishes. From this fish family there sprang two unique modifications, the frog
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and the salamander. And it was the frog which began that series of progressive
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differentiations in animal life that finally culminated in man himself.
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The frog is one of the earliest of surviving human-race ancestors, but it also
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failed to progress, persisting today much as in those remote times. The frog is
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the only species ancestor of the early dawn races now living on the face of the
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earth. The human race has no surviving ancestry between the frog and the
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Eskimo.
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The frogs gave rise to the Reptilia, a great animal family which is virtually
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extinct, but which, before passing out of existence, gave origin to the whole
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bird family and the numerous orders of mammals.
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Probably the greatest single leap of all prehuman evolution was executed when
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the reptile became a bird. The bird types of today--eagles, ducks, pigeons, and
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ostriches--all descended from the enormous reptiles of long, long ago.
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The kingdom of reptiles, descended from the frog family, is today represented
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by four surviving divisions: two nonprogressive, snakes and lizards, together
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with their cousins, alligators and turtles; one partially progressive, the bird
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family, and the fourth the ancestors of mammals and the direct line of descent
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of the human species. But though long departed, the massiveness of the passing
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Reptilia found echo in the elephant and mastodon, while their peculiar forms
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were perpetuated in the leaping kangaroos.
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top of page - 733
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Only fourteen phyla have appeared on Urantia, the fishes being the last, and no
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new classes have developed since birds and mammals.
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It was from an agile little reptilian dinosaur of carnivorous habits but having
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a comparatively large brain that the placental mammals suddenly sprang. These
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mammals developed rapidly and in many different ways, not only giving rise to
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the common modern varieties but also evolving into marine types, such as whales
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and seals, and into air navigators like the bat family.
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Man thus evolved from the higher mammals derived principally from the western
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implantation of life in the ancient east-west sheltered seas. The eastern and
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central groups of living organisms were early progressing favorably toward the
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attainment of prehuman levels of animal existence. But as the ages passed, the
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eastern focus of life emplacement failed to attain a satisfactory level of
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intelligent prehuman status, having suffered such repeated and irretrievable
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losses of its highest types of germ plasm that it was forever shorn of the
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power to rehabilitate human potentialities.
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Since the quality of the mind capacity for development in this eastern group
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was so definitely inferior to that of the other two groups, the Life Carriers,
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with the consent of their superiors, so manipulated the environment as further
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to circumscribe these inferior prehuman strains of evolving life. To all
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outward appearances the elimination of these inferior groups of creatures was
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accidental, but in reality it was altogether purposeful.
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Later in the evolutionary unfolding of intelligence, the lemur ancestors of the
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human species were far more advanced in North America than in other regions;
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and they were therefore led to migrate from the arena of western life
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implantation over the Bering land bridge and down the coast to southwestern
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Asia, where they continued to evolve and to benefit by the addition of certain
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strains of the central life group. Man thus evolved out of certain western and
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central life strains but in the central to near-eastern regions.
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In this way the life that was planted on Urantia evolved until the ice age,
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when man himself first appeared and began his eventful planetary career. And
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this appearance of primitive man on earth during the ice age was not just an
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accident; it was by design. The rigors and climatic severity of the glacial era
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were in every way adapted to the purpose of fostering the production of a hardy
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type of human being with tremendous survival endowment.
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3. THE FOSTERING OF EVOLUTION
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It will hardly be possible to explain to the present-day human mind many of the
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queer and apparently grotesque occurrences of early evolutionary progress. A
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purposeful plan was functioning throughout all of these seemingly strange
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evolutions of living things, but we are not allowed arbitrarily to interfere
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with the development of the life patterns after they have once been set in
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operation.
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Life Carriers may employ every possible natural resource and may utilize any
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and all fortuitous circumstances which will enhance the developmental progress
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of the life experiment, but we are not permitted mechanically to intervene in,
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or arbitrarily to manipulate the conduct and course of, either plant or animal
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evolution.
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You have been informed that Urantia mortals evolved by way of primitive frog
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development, and that this ascending strain, carried in potential in a single
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top of page - 734
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frog, narrowly escaped extinction on a certain occasion. But it should not be
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inferred that the evolution of mankind would have been terminated by an
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accident at this juncture. At that very moment we were observing and fostering
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no less than one thousand different and remotely situated mutating strains of
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life which could have been directed into various different patterns of prehuman
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development. This particular ancestral frog represented our third selection,
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the two prior life strains having perished in spite of all our efforts toward
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their conservation.
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Even the loss of Andon and Fonta before they had offspring, though delaying
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human evolution, would not have prevented it. Subsequent to the appearance of
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Andon and Fonta and before the mutating human potentials of animal life were
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exhausted, there evolved no less than seven thousand favorable strains which
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could have achieved some sort of human type of development. And many of these
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better stocks were subsequently assimilated by the various branches of the
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expanding human species.
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Long before the Material Son and Daughter, the biologic uplifters, arrive on a
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planet, the human potentials of the evolving animal species have been
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exhausted. This biologic status of animal life is disclosed to the Life
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Carriers by the phenomenon of the third phase of adjutant spirit mobilization,
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which automatically occurs concomitantly with the exhaustion of the capacity of
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all animal life to give origin to the mutant potentials of prehuman
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individuals.
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Mankind on Urantia must solve its problems of mortal development with the human
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stocks it has--no more races will evolve from prehuman sources throughout all
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future time. But this fact does not preclude the possibility of the attainment
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of vastly higher levels of human development through the intelligent fostering
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of the evolutionary potentials still resident in the mortal races. That which
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we, the Life Carriers, do toward fostering and conserving the life strains
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before the appearance of human will, man must do for himself after such an
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event and subsequent to our retirement from active participation in evolution.
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In a general way, man's evolutionary destiny is in his own hands, and
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scientific intelligence must sooner or later supersede the random functioning
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of uncontrolled natural selection and chance survival.
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And in discussing the fostering of evolution, it would not be amiss to point
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out that, in the long future ahead, when you may sometime be attached to a
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corps of Life Carriers, you will have abundant and ample opportunity to offer
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suggestions and make any possible improvements in the plans and technique of
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life management and transplantation. Be patient! If you have good ideas, if
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your minds are fertile with better methods of administration for any part of
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the universal domains, you are certainly going to have an opportunity to
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present them to your associates and fellow administrators in the ages to come.
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4. THE URANTIA ADVENTURE
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Do not overlook the fact that Urantia was assigned to us as a life-experiment
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world. On this planet we made our sixtieth attempt to modify and, if possible,
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improve the Satania adaptation of the Nebadon life designs, and it is of record
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that we achieved numerous beneficial modifications of the standard life
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patterns. To be specific, on Urantia we worked out and have satisfactorily
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demonstrated
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top of page - 735
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not less than twenty-eight features of life modification which will be of
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service to all Nebadon throughout all future time.
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But the establishment of life on no world is ever experimental in the sense
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that something untried and unknown is attempted. The evolution of life is a
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technique ever progressive, differential, and variable, but never haphazard,
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uncontrolled, nor wholly experimental, in the accidental sense.
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Many features of human life afford abundant evidence that the phenomenon of
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mortal existence was intelligently planned, that organic evolution is not a
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mere cosmic accident. When a living cell is injured, it possesses the ability
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to elaborate certain chemical substances which are empowered so to stimulate
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and activate the neighboring normal cells that they immediately begin the
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secretion of certain substances which facilitate healing processes in the
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wound; and at the same time these normal and uninjured cells begin to
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proliferate--they actually start to work creating new cells to replace any
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fellow cells which may have been destroyed by the accident.
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This chemical action and reaction concerned in wound healing and cell
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reproduction represents the choice of the Life Carriers of a formula embracing
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over one hundred thousand phases and features of possible chemical reactions
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and biologic repercussions. More than half a million specific experiments were
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made by the Life Carriers in their laboratories before they finally settled
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upon this formula for the Urantia life experiment.
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When Urantia scientists know more of these healing chemicals, they will become
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more efficient in the treatment of injuries, and indirectly they will know more
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about controlling certain serious diseases.
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Since life was established on Urantia, the Life Carriers have improved this
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healing technique as it has been introduced on another Satania world, in that
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it affords more pain relief and exercises better control over the proliferation
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capacity of the associated normal cells.
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There were many unique features of the Urantia life experiment, but the two
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outstanding episodes were the appearance of the Andonic race prior to the
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evolution of the six colored peoples and the later simultaneous appearance of
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the Sangik mutants in a single family. Urantia is the first world in Satania
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where the six colored races sprang from the same human family. They ordinarily
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arise in diversified strains from independent mutations within the prehuman
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animal stock and usually appear on earth one at a time and successively over
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long periods of time, beginning with the red man and passing on down through
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the colors to indigo.
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Another outstanding variation of procedure was the late arrival of the
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Planetary Prince. As a rule, the prince appears on a planet about the time of
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will development; and if such a plan had been followed, Caligastia might have
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come to Urantia even during the lifetimes of Andon and Fonta instead of almost
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five hundred thousand years later, simultaneously with the appearance of the
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six Sangik races.
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On an ordinary inhabited world a Planetary Prince would have been granted on
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the request of the Life Carriers at, or sometime after, the appearance of Andon
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and Fonta. But Urantia having been designated a life-modification planet, it
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was by preagreement that the Melchizedek observers, twelve in number, were sent
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as advisers to the Life Carriers and as overseers of the planet until
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top of page - 736
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the subsequent arrival of the Planetary Prince. These Melchizedeks came at the
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time Andon and Fonta made the decisions which enabled Thought Adjusters to
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indwell their mortal minds.
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On Urantia the endeavors of the Life Carriers to improve the Satania life
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patterns necessarily resulted in the production of many apparently useless
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forms of transition life. But the gains already accrued are sufficient to
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justify the Urantia modifications of the standard life designs.
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It was our intention to produce an early manifestation of will in the
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evolutionary life of Urantia, and we succeeded. Ordinarily, will does not
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emerge until the colored races have long been in existence, usually first
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appearing among the superior types of the red man. Your world is the only
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planet in Satania where the human type of will has appeared in a precolored
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race.
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But in our effort to provide for that combination and association of
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inheritance factors which finally gave rise to the mammalian ancestors of the
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human race, we were confronted with the necessity of permitting hundreds and
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thousands of other and comparatively useless combinations and associations of
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inheritance factors to take place. Many of these seemingly strange by-products
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of our efforts are certain to meet your gaze as you dig back into the planetary
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past, and I can well understand how puzzling some of these things must be to
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the limited human viewpoint.
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5. LIFE-EVOLUTION VICISSITUDES
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It was a source of regret to the Life Carriers that our special efforts to
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modify intelligent life on Urantia should have been so handicapped by tragic
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perversions beyond our control: the Caligastia betrayal and the Adamic default.
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But throughout all of this biologic adventure our greatest disappointment grew
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out of the reversion of certain primitive plant life to the prechlorophyll
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levels of parasitic bacteria on such an extensive and unexpected scale. This
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eventuality in plant-life evolution caused many distressful diseases in the
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higher mammals, particularly in the more vulnerable human species. When we were
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confronted with this perplexing situation, we somewhat discounted the
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difficulties involved because we knew that the subsequent admixture of the
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Adamic life plasm would so reinforce the resisting powers of the resulting
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blended race as to make it practically immune to all diseases produced by the
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vegetable type of organism. But our hopes were doomed to disappointment owing
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to the misfortune of the Adamic default.
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The universe of universes, including this small world called Urantia, is not
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being managed merely to meet our approval nor just to suit our convenience,
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much less to gratify our whims and satisfy our curiosity. The wise and
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all-powerful beings who are responsible for universe management undoubtedly
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know exactly what they are about; and so it becomes Life Carriers and behooves
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mortal minds to enlist in patient waiting and hearty co-operation with the rule
|
||
of wisdom, the reign of power, and the march of progress.
|
||
|
||
There are, of course, certain compensations for tribulation, such as Michael's
|
||
bestowal on Urantia. But irrespective of all such considerations, the later
|
||
celestial supervisors of this planet express complete confidence in the
|
||
ultimate evolutionary triumph of the human race and in the eventual vindication
|
||
of our original plans and life patterns.
|
||
|
||
top of page - 737
|
||
|
||
6. EVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUES OF LIFE
|
||
|
||
It is impossible accurately to determine, simultaneously, the exact location
|
||
and the velocity of a moving object; any attempt at measurement of either
|
||
inevitably involves change in the other. The same sort of a paradox confronts
|
||
mortal man when he undertakes the chemical analysis of protoplasm. The chemist
|
||
can elucidate the chemistry of dead protoplasm, but he cannot discern either
|
||
the physical organization or the dynamic performance of living protoplasm. Ever
|
||
will the scientist come nearer and nearer the secrets of life, but never will
|
||
he find them and for no other reason than that he must kill protoplasm in order
|
||
to analyze it. Dead protoplasm weighs the same as living protoplasm, but it is
|
||
not the same.
|
||
|
||
There is original endowment of adaptation in living things and beings. In every
|
||
living plant or animal cell, in every living organism--material or
|
||
spiritual--there is an insatiable craving for the attainment of ever-increasing
|
||
perfection of environmental adjustment, organismal adaptation, and augmented
|
||
life realization. These interminable efforts of all living things evidence the
|
||
existence within them of an innate striving for perfection.
|
||
|
||
The most important step in plant evolution was the development of
|
||
chlorophyll-making ability, and the second greatest advance was the evolution
|
||
of the spore into the complex seed. The spore is most efficient as a
|
||
reproductive agent, but it lacks the potentials of variety and versatility
|
||
inherent in the seed.
|
||
|
||
One of the most serviceable and complex episodes in the evolution of the higher
|
||
types of animals consisted in the development of the ability of the iron in the
|
||
circulating blood cells to perform in the double role of oxygen carrier and
|
||
carbon dioxide remover. And this performance of the red blood cells illustrates
|
||
how evolving organisms are able to adapt their functions to varying or changing
|
||
environment. The higher animals, including man, oxygenate their tissues by the
|
||
action of the iron of the red blood cells, which carries oxygen to the living
|
||
cells and just as efficiently removes the carbon dioxide. But other metals can
|
||
be made to serve the same purpose. The cuttlefish employs copper for this
|
||
function, and the sea squirt utilizes vanadium.
|
||
|
||
The continuation of such biologic adjustments is illustrated by the evolution
|
||
of teeth in the higher Urantia mammals; these attained to thirty-six in man's
|
||
remote ancestors, and then began an adaptative readjustment toward thirty-two
|
||
in the dawn man and his near relatives. Now the human species is slowly
|
||
gravitating toward twenty-eight. The process of evolution is still actively and
|
||
adaptatively in progress on this planet.
|
||
|
||
But many seemingly mysterious adjustments of living organisms are purely
|
||
chemical, wholly physical. At any moment of time, in the blood stream of any
|
||
human being there exists the possibility of upward of 15,000,000 chemical
|
||
reactions between the hormone output of a dozen ductless glands.
|
||
|
||
The lower forms of plant life are wholly responsive to physical, chemical, and
|
||
electrical environment. But as the scale of life ascends, one by one the mind
|
||
ministries of the seven adjutant spirits become operative, and the mind becomes
|
||
increasingly adjustive, creative, co-ordinative, and dominative. The ability of
|
||
animals to adapt themselves to air, water, and land is not a supernatural
|
||
endowment, but it is a superphysical adjustment.
|
||
|
||
top of page - 738
|
||
|
||
Physics and chemistry alone cannot explain how a human being evolved out of the
|
||
primeval protoplasm of the early seas. The ability to learn, memory and
|
||
differential response to environment, is the endowment of mind. The laws of
|
||
physics are not responsive to training; they are immutable and unchanging. The
|
||
reactions of chemistry are not modified by education; they are uniform and
|
||
dependable. Aside from the presence of the Unqualified Absolute, electrical and
|
||
chemical reactions are predictable. But mind can profit from experience, can
|
||
learn from reactive habits of behavior in response to repetition of stimuli.
|
||
|
||
Preintelligent organisms react to environmental stimuli, but those organisms
|
||
which are reactive to mind ministry can adjust and manipulate the environment
|
||
itself.
|
||
|
||
The physical brain with its associated nervous system possesses innate capacity
|
||
for response to mind ministry just as the developing mind of a personality
|
||
possesses a certain innate capacity for spirit receptivity and therefore
|
||
contains the potentials of spiritual progress and attainment. Intellectual,
|
||
social, moral, and spiritual evolution are dependent on the mind ministry of
|
||
the seven adjutant spirits and their superphysical associates.
|
||
|
||
7. EVOLUTIONARY MIND LEVELS
|
||
|
||
The seven adjutant mind-spirits are the versatile mind ministers to the lower
|
||
intelligent existences of a local universe. This order of mind is ministered
|
||
from the local universe headquarters or from some world connected therewith,
|
||
but there is influential direction of lower-mind function from the system
|
||
capitals.
|
||
|
||
On an evolutionary world much, very much, depends on the work of these seven
|
||
adjutants. But they are mind ministers; they are not concerned in physical
|
||
evolution, the domain of the Life Carriers. Nevertheless, the perfect
|
||
integration of these spirit endowments with the ordained and natural procedure
|
||
of the unfolding and inherent regime of the Life Carriers is responsible for
|
||
the mortal inability to discern, in the phenomenon of mind, aught but the hand
|
||
of nature and the outworking of natural processes, albeit you are occasionally
|
||
somewhat perplexed in explaining all of everything connected with the natural
|
||
reactions of mind as it is associated with matter. And if Urantia were
|
||
operating more in accordance with the original plans, you would observe even
|
||
less to arrest your attention in the phenomenon of mind.
|
||
|
||
The seven adjutant spirits are more circuitlike than entitylike, and on
|
||
ordinary worlds they are encircuited with other adjutant functionings
|
||
throughout the local universe. On life-experiment planets, however, they are
|
||
relatively isolated. And on Urantia, owing to the unique nature of the life
|
||
patterns, the lower adjutants experienced far more difficulty in contacting
|
||
with the evolutionary organisms than would have been the case in a more
|
||
standardized type of life endowment.
|
||
|
||
Again, on an average evolutionary world the seven adjutant spirits are far
|
||
better synchronized with the advancing stages of animal development than they
|
||
were on Urantia. With but a single exception, the adjutants experienced the
|
||
greatest difficulty in contacting with the evolving minds of Urantia organisms
|
||
that they had ever had in all their functioning throughout the universe of
|
||
Nebadon. On this world there developed many forms of border
|
||
phenomena--confusional combinations of the mechanical-nonteachable and the
|
||
nonmechanical-teachable types of organismal response.
|
||
|
||
top of page - 739
|
||
|
||
The seven adjutant spirits do not make contact with the purely mechanical
|
||
orders of organismal environmental response. Such preintelligent responses of
|
||
living organisms pertain purely to the energy domains of the power centers, the
|
||
physical controllers, and their associates.
|
||
|
||
The acquisition of the potential of the ability to learn from experience marks
|
||
the beginning of the functioning of the adjutant spirits, and they function
|
||
from the lowliest minds of primitive and invisible existences up to the highest
|
||
types in the evolutionary scale of human beings. They are the source and
|
||
pattern for the otherwise more or less mysterious behavior and incompletely
|
||
understood quick reactions of mind to the material environment. Long must these
|
||
faithful and always dependable influences carry forward their preliminary
|
||
ministry before the animal mind attains the human levels of spirit receptivity.
|
||
|
||
The adjutants function exclusively in the evolution of experiencing mind up to
|
||
the level of the sixth phase, the spirit of worship. At this level there occurs
|
||
that inevitable overlapping of ministry--the phenomenon of the higher reaching
|
||
down to co-ordinate with the lower in anticipation of subsequent attainment of
|
||
advanced levels of development. And still additional spirit ministry
|
||
accompanies the action of the seventh and last adjutant, the spirit of wisdom.
|
||
Throughout the ministry of the spirit world the individual never experiences
|
||
abrupt transitions of spirit co-operation; always are these changes gradual and
|
||
reciprocal.
|
||
|
||
Always should the domains of the physical (electrochemical) and the mental
|
||
response to environmental stimuli be differentiated, and in turn must they all
|
||
be recognized as phenomena apart from spiritual activities. The domains of
|
||
physical, mental, and spiritual gravity are distinct realms of cosmic reality,
|
||
notwithstanding their intimate interrelations.
|
||
|
||
8. EVOLUTION IN TIME AND SPACE
|
||
|
||
Time and space are indissolubly linked; there is an innate association. The
|
||
delays of time are inevitable in the presence of certain space conditions.
|
||
|
||
If spending so much time in effecting the evolutionary changes of life
|
||
development occasions perplexity, I would say that we cannot time the life
|
||
processes to unfold any faster than the physical metamorphoses of a planet will
|
||
permit. We must wait upon the natural, physical development of a planet; we
|
||
have absolutely no control over geologic evolution. If the physical conditions
|
||
would allow, we could arrange for the completed evolution of life in
|
||
considerably less than one million years. But we are all under the jurisdiction
|
||
of the Supreme Rulers of Paradise, and time is nonexistent on Paradise.
|
||
|
||
The individual's yardstick for time measurement is the length of his life. All
|
||
creatures are thus time conditioned, and therefore do they regard evolution as
|
||
being a long-drawn-out process. To those of us whose life span is not limited
|
||
by a temporal existence, evolution does not seem to be such a protracted
|
||
transaction. On Paradise, where time is nonexistent, these things are all
|
||
present in the mind of Infinity and the acts of Eternity.
|
||
|
||
As mind evolution is dependent on, and delayed by, the slow development of
|
||
physical conditions, so is spiritual progress dependent on mental expansion and
|
||
unfailingly delayed by intellectual retardation. But this does not mean that
|
||
spiritual evolution is dependent on education, culture, or wisdom. The soul may
|
||
evolve regardless of mental culture but not in the absence of mental capacity
|
||
|
||
top of page - 740
|
||
|
||
and desire--the choice of survival and the decision to achieve ever-increasing
|
||
perfection--to do the will of the Father in heaven. Although survival may not
|
||
depend on the possession of knowledge and wisdom, progression most certainly
|
||
does.
|
||
|
||
In the cosmic evolutionary laboratories mind is always dominant over matter,
|
||
and spirit is ever correlated with mind. Failure of these diverse endowments to
|
||
synchronize and co-ordinate may cause time delays, but if the individual really
|
||
knows God and desires to find him and become like him, then survival is assured
|
||
regardless of the handicaps of time. Physical status may handicap mind, and
|
||
mental perversity may delay spiritual attainment, but none of these obstacles
|
||
can defeat the whole-souled choice of will.
|
||
|
||
When physical conditions are ripe, sudden mental evolutions may take place;
|
||
when mind status is propitious, sudden spiritual transformations may occur;
|
||
when spiritual values receive proper recognition, then cosmic meanings become
|
||
discernible, and increasingly the personality is released from the handicaps of
|
||
time and delivered from the limitations of space.
|
||
|
||
[Sponsored by a Life Carrier of Nebadon resident on Urantia.]
|
||
|
||
top of page - 741
|
||
|
||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
|
||
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
|
||
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
|
||
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
|
||
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
|
||
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
|
||
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
|
||
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
|
||
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
|
||
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
|
||
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
|
||
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
|
||
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
|
||
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
|
||
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
|
||
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
|
||
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
|
||
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
|
||
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
|
||
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
|
||
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
|
||
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
|
||
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
|
||
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
|
||
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael
|
||
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>Ŀ
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<EFBFBD> // <20> <20> <20> <20> <20>
|
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<EFBFBD> The <20> The Planetary <20> Urantia Book <20> Search <20> SiteMap! <20>
|
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//
|
||
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||
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<EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> SPIRITWEB ORG (info@spiritweb.org), <20> <20>
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<EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> http://www.spiritweb.org <20> <20>
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<EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> Webmaster <webmaster@spiritweb.org> <20> <20>
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