5. PLANETARY HELPERS
39:5.1 These seraphim maintain headquarters on the system capitals and, though closely associated with the resident Adamic citizens, are primarily assigned to the service of the Planetary Adams, the biologic or physical uplifters of the material races on the evolutionary worlds. The ministering work of angels becomes of increasing interest as it nears the inhabited worlds, as it nears the actual problems faced by the men and women of time who are preparing themselves for the attempt to attain the goal of eternity.
39:5.2 On Urantia the majority of the planetary helpers were removed upon the collapse of the Adamic regime, and the seraphic supervision of your world devolved to a greater extent upon the administrators, the transition ministers, and the guardians of destiny. But these seraphic aids of your defaulting Material Sons still serve Urantia in the following groups:
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39:5.6 In the more advanced epochs of planetary evolution these seraphim are instrumental in supplanting the atonement idea by the concept of divine attunement as a philosophy of mortal survival.
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39:5.8 This entire group of seraphim was transferred to the new regime after the Adamic miscarriage, and they have ever since continued their labours on Urantia. And they have not been wholly unsuccessful since a civilization is now evolving which embodies much of their ideals of confidence and trust.
39:5.9 In the more advanced planetary ages these seraphim enhance man’s appreciation of the truth that uncertainty is the secret of contented continuity. They help the mortal philosophers to realize that, when ignorance is essential to success, it would be a colossal blunder for the creature to know the future. They heighten man’s taste for the sweetness of uncertainty, for the romance and charm of the indefinite and unknown future.
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39:5.11 ¶ Your conventional idea of angels has been derived in the following way: During moments just prior to physical death a reflective phenomenon sometimes occurs in the human mind, and this dimming consciousness seems to visualize something of the form of the attending angel, and this is immediately translated into terms of the habitual concept of angels held in that individual’s mind.
39:5.12 The erroneous idea that angels possess wings is not wholly due to olden notions that they must have wings to fly through the air. Human beings have sometimes been permitted to observe seraphim that were being prepared for transport service, and the traditions of these experiences have largely determined the Urantian concept of angels. In observing a transport seraphim being made ready to receive a passenger for interplanetary transit, there may be seen what are apparently double sets of wings extending from the head to the foot of the angel. In reality these wings are energy insulators — friction shields.
39:5.13 ¶ When celestial beings are to be enseraphimed for transfer from one world to another, they are brought to the headquarters of the sphere and, after due registry, are inducted into the transit sleep. Meantime, the transport seraphim moves into a horizontal position immediately above the universe energy pole of the planet. While the energy shields are wide open, the sleeping personality is skillfully deposited, by the officiating seraphic assistants, directly on top of the transport angel. Then both the upper and lower pairs of shields are carefully closed and adjusted.
39:5.14 And now, under the influence of the transformers and the transmitters, a strange metamorphosis begins as the seraphim is made ready to swing into the energy currents of the universe circuits. To outward appearance the seraphim grows pointed at both extremities and becomes so enshrouded in a queer light of amber hue that very soon it is impossible to distinguish the enseraphimed personality. When all is in readiness for departure, the chief of transport makes the proper inspection of the carriage of life, carries out the routine tests to ascertain whether or not the angel is properly encircuited, and then announces that the traveller is properly enseraphimed, that the energies are adjusted, that the angel is insulated, and that everything is in readiness for the departing flash. The mechanical controllers, two of them, next take their positions. By this time the transport seraphim has become an almost transparent, vibrating, torpedo-shaped outline of glistening luminosity. Now the transport dispatcher of the realm summons the auxiliary batteries of the living energy transmitters, usually 1,000 in number; as he announces the destination of the transport, he reaches out and touches the near point of the seraphic carriage, which shoots forward with lightninglike speed, leaving a trail of celestial luminosity as far as the planetary atmospheric investment extends. In less than 10 minutes the marvellous spectacle will be lost even to reinforced seraphic vision.
39:5.15 ¶ While planetary space reports are received at noon at the meridian of the designated spiritual headquarters, the transporters are dispatched from this same place at midnight. That is the most favourable time for departure and is the standard hour when not otherwise specified.
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