The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers

circumventing disagreeable obligations.

^48:5.9 ¶ Beginning service on the lowest of the tarrying spheres, the Mansion World Teachers advance, with experience, through the educational spheres of the system and the constellation to the training worlds of Salvington. They are subjected to no special discipline either before or after their embrace by the Universe Mother Spirit. They have already been trained for their work while serving as seraphic associates on the worlds native to their pupils of mansion world sojourn. They have had actual experience with these advancing mortals on the inhabited worlds. They are practical and sympathetic teachers, wise and understanding instructors, able and efficient guides. They are entirely familiar with the ascendant plans and thoroughly experienced in the initial phases of the progression career.

^48:5.10 Many of the older of these teachers, those who have long served on the worlds of the Salvington circuit, are re-embraced by the Universe Mother Spirit, and from this second embrace these cherubim and sanobim emerge with the status of seraphim.

6. MORONTIA WORLD SERAPHIM — TRANSITION MINISTERS

^48:6.1 While all orders of angels, from the planetary helpers to the supreme seraphim, minister on the morontia worlds, the transition ministers are more exclusively assigned to these activities. These angels are of the sixth order of seraphic servers, and their ministry is devoted to facilitating the transit of material and mortal creatures from the temporal life in the flesh on into the early stages of morontia existence on the seven mansion worlds.

^48:6.2 You should understand that the morontia life of an ascending mortal is really initiated on the inhabited worlds at the conception of the soul, at that moment when the creature mind of moral status is indwelt by the spirit Adjuster. And from that moment on, the mortal soul has potential capacity for supermortal function, even for recognition on the higher levels of the morontia spheres of the local universe.

^48:6.3 ¶ You will not, however, be conscious of the ministry of the transition seraphim until you attain the mansion worlds, where they labour untiringly for the advancement of their mortal pupils, being assigned for service in the following seven divisions:

^48:6.4 1. Seraphic Evangels. The moment you consciousize on the mansion worlds, you are classified as evolving spirits in the records of the system. True, you are not yet spirits in reality, but you are no longer mortal or material beings; you have embarked upon the prespirit career and have been duly admitted to the morontia life.

^48:6.5 On the mansion worlds the seraphic evangels will help you to choose wisely among the optional routes to Edentia, Salvington, Uversa, and Havona. If there are a number of equally advisable routes, these will be put before you, and you will be permitted to select the one that most appeals to you. These seraphim then make recommendations to the four and twenty advisers on Jerusem concerning that course which would be most advantageous for each ascending soul.

^48:6.6 You are not given unrestricted choice as to your future course; but you may choose within the limits of that which the transition ministers and their superiors wisely determine to be most suitable for your future spirit attainment. The spirit world is governed on the principle of respecting your freewill choice provided the course you may choose is not detrimental to you or injurious to your fellows.

^48:6.7 ¶ These seraphic evangels are dedicated to the proclamation of the gospel of eternal progression, the triumph of perfection attainment. On the mansion worlds they proclaim the great law of the conservation and dominance of goodness: No act of good is ever wholly lost; it may be long thwarted but never wholly annulled, and it is eternally potent in proportion to the divinity of its motivation.

^48:6.8 Even on Urantia they counsel the human teachers of truth and righteousness to adhere to the preaching of “the goodness of God, which leads to repentance,” to proclaim “the love of God, which casts out all fear.” Even so have these truths been declared on your world:

^48:6.9 The Gods are my caretakers; I shall not stray;

^48:6.10 Side by side they lead me in the beautiful paths and glorious refreshing of life everlasting.

^48:6.11 I shall not, in this Divine Presence, want for food nor thirst for water.

^48:6.12 Though I go down into the valley of uncertainty or ascend up into the worlds of doubt,

^48:6.13 Though I move in loneliness or with the fellows of my kind,

^48:6.14 Though I triumph in the choirs of light or falter in the solitary places of the spheres,

^48:6.15 Your good spirit shall minister to me, and your glorious angel will comfort me.

^48:6.16 Though I descend into the depths of darkness and death itself,

^48:6.17 I shall not doubt you nor fear you,

^48:6.18 For I know that in the fullness of time and the glory of your name

^48:6.19 You will raise me up to sit with you on the battlements on high.

^48:6.20 ¶ That is the story whispered in the night season to the shepherd boy. He could not retain it word for word, but to the best of his memory he gave it much as it is recorded today.

^48:6.21 These seraphim are also the evangels of the gospel of perfection attainment for the whole system as well as for the individual ascender. Even now in the young system of Satania their teachings and plans encompass provisions for the future ages when the mansion worlds will no longer serve the mortal ascenders as stepping stones to the spheres on high.

^48:6.22 2. Racial Interpreters. All races of mortal beings are not alike. True, there is a planetary pattern running through the physical, mental, and spiritual natures and tendencies of the various races of a given world; but there are also distinct racial types, and very definite social tendencies characterize the offspring of these different basic types of human beings. On the worlds of time the seraphic racial interpreters further the efforts of the race commissioners to harmonize the varied viewpoints of the races, and they continue to function on the mansion worlds, where these same differences tend to persist in a measure. On a confused planet, such as Urantia, these brilliant beings have hardly had a fair opportunity to function, but they are the skillful sociologists and the wise ethnic advisers of the first heaven.

^48:6.23 ¶ You should consider the statement about “heaven” and the “heaven of heavens.” The heaven conceived by most of your prophets was the first of the mansion worlds of the local system. When the apostle spoke of being “caught up to the third heaven,” he referred to that experience in which his Adjuster was detached during sleep and in this unusual state made a projection to the third of the seven mansion worlds. Some of your wise men saw the vision of the greater heaven, “the heaven of heavens,” of which the sevenfold mansion world experience was but the first; the second being Jerusem; the third, Edentia and its satellites; the fourth, Salvington and the surrounding educational spheres; the fifth, Uversa; the sixth, Havona; and the seventh, Paradise.

^48:6.24 3. Mind Planners. These seraphim are devoted to the effective grouping of morontia beings and to organizing their teamwork on the mansion worlds. They are the psychologists of the first heaven. The majority of this particular division of seraphic ministers have had previous experience as guardian angels to the children of time, but their wards, for some reason, failed to personalize on the mansion worlds or else survived by the technique of Spirit fusion.

^48:6.25 It is the task of the mind planners to study the nature, experience, and status of the Adjuster souls in transit through the mansion worlds and to facilitate their grouping for assignment and advancement. But these mind planners do not scheme, manipulate, or otherwise take advantage of the ignorance or other limitations of mansion world students. They are wholly fair and eminently just. They respect your newborn morontia will; they regard you as independent volitional beings, and they seek to encourage your speedy development and advancement. Here you are face to face with true friends and understanding counsellors, angels who are really able to help you “to see yourself as others see you” and “to know yourself as angels know you.”