rebel Lucifer. Work with the soil is not a curse; rather is it the highest blessing to all who are thus permitted to enjoy the most human of all human activities.
66:7.20 At the outbreak of the rebellion, Dalamatia had a resident population of almost 6,000. This number includes the regular students but does not embrace the visitors and observers, who always numbered more than 1,000. But you can have little or no concept of the marvellous progress of those faraway times; practically all of the wonderful human gains of those days were wiped out by the horrible confusion and abject spiritual darkness which followed the Caligastia catastrophe of deception and sedition.
8. MISFORTUNES OF CALIGASTIA
66:8.1 In looking back over the long career of Caligastia, we find only one outstanding feature of his conduct that might have challenged attention; he was ultraindividualistic. He was inclined to take sides with almost every party of protest, and he was usually sympathetic with those who gave mild expression to implied criticism. We detect the early appearance of this tendency to be restless under authority, to mildly resent all forms of supervision. While slightly resentful of senior counsel and somewhat restive under superior authority, nonetheless, whenever a test had come, he had always proved loyal to the universe rulers and obedient to the mandates of the Constellation Fathers. No real fault was ever found in him up to the time of his shameful betrayal of Urantia.
66:8.2 It should be noted that both Lucifer and Caligastia had been patiently instructed and lovingly warned respecting their critical tendencies and the subtle development of their pride of self and its associated exaggeration of the feeling of self-importance. But all of these attempts to help had been misconstrued as unwarranted criticism and as unjustified interference with personal liberties. Both Caligastia and Lucifer judged their friendly advisers as being actuated by the very reprehensible motives which were beginning to dominate their own distorted thinking and misguided planning. They judged their unselfish advisers by their own evolving selfishness.
66:8.3 ¶ From the arrival of Prince Caligastia, planetary civilization progressed in a fairly normal manner for almost 300,000 years. Aside from being a life-modification sphere and therefore subject to numerous irregularities and unusual episodes of evolutionary fluctuation, Urantia progressed very satisfactorily in its planetary career up to the times of the Lucifer rebellion and the concurrent Caligastia betrayal. All subsequent history has been definitely modified by this catastrophic blunder as well as by the later failure of Adam and Eve to fulfil their planetary mission.
66:8.4 The Prince of Urantia went into darkness at the time of the Lucifer rebellion, thus precipitating the long confusion of the planet. He was subsequently deprived of sovereign authority by the co- ordinate action of the constellation rulers and other universe authorities. He shared the inevitable vicissitudes of isolated Urantia down to the time of Adam’s sojourn on the planet and contributed something to the miscarriage of the plan to uplift the mortal races through the infusion of the lifeblood of the new violet race — the descendants of Adam and Eve.
66:8.5 The power of the fallen Prince to disturb human affairs was enormously curtailed by the mortal incarnation of Machiventa Melchizedek in the days of Abraham; and subsequently, during the life of Michael in the flesh, this traitorous Prince was finally shorn of all authority on Urantia.
66:8.6 ¶ The doctrine of a personal devil on Urantia, though it had some foundation in the planetary presence of the traitorous and iniquitous Caligastia, was nevertheless wholly fictitious in its teachings that such a “devil” could influence the normal human mind against its free and natural choosing. Even before Michael’s bestowal on Urantia, neither Caligastia nor Daligastia was ever able to oppress mortals or to coerce any normal individual into doing anything against the human will. The free will of man is supreme in moral affairs; even the indwelling Thought Adjuster refuses to compel man to think a single thought or to perform a single act against the choosing of man’s own will.
66:8.7 And now this rebel of the realm, shorn of all power to harm his former subjects, awaits the final adjudication, by the Uversa Ancients of Days, of all who participated in the Lucifer rebellion.
66:8.8 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
PAPER № 67
THE PLANETARY REBELLION
67:0.1 The problems associated with human existence on Urantia are impossible of understanding without a knowledge of certain great epochs of the past, notably the occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion. Although this upheaval did not seriously interfere with the progress of organic evolution, it did markedly modify the course of social evolution and of spiritual development. The entire superphysical history of the planet was profoundly influenced by this devastating calamity.
1. THE CALIGASTIA BETRAYAL
67:1.1 For 300,000 years Caligastia had been in charge of Urantia when Satan, Lucifer’s assistant, made one of his periodic inspection calls. And when Satan arrived on the planet, his appearance in no way resembled your caricatures of his nefarious majesty. He was, and still is, a Lanonandek Son of great brilliance. “And no marvel, for Satan himself is a brilliant creature of light.”
67:1.2 In the course of this inspection Satan informed Caligastia of Lucifer’s then proposed “Declaration of Liberty,” and as we now know, the Prince agreed to betray the planet upon the announcement of the rebellion. The loyal universe personalities look with peculiar disdain upon Prince Caligastia because of this premeditated betrayal of trust. The Creator Son voiced this contempt when he said: “You are like your leader, Lucifer, and you have sinfully perpetuated his iniquity. He was a falsifier from the beginning of his self-exaltation because he abode not in the truth.”
67:1.3 In all the administrative work of a local universe no high trust is deemed more sacred than that reposed in a Planetary Prince who assumes responsibility for the welfare and guidance of the evolving mortals on a newly inhabited world. And of all forms of evil, none are more destructive of personality status than betrayal of trust and disloyalty to one’s confiding friends. In committing this deliberate sin, Caligastia so completely distorted his personality that his mind has never since been able fully to regain its equilibrium.
67:1.4 ¶ There are many ways of looking at sin, but from the universe philosophic viewpoint sin is the attitude of a personality who is knowingly resisting cosmic reality. Error might be regarded as a misconception or distortion of reality. Evil is a partial realization of, or maladjustment to, universe realities. But sin is a purposeful resistance to divine reality — a conscious choosing to oppose spiritual progress — while iniquity consists in an open and persistent defiance of recognized reality and signifies such a degree of personality disintegration as to border on cosmic insanity.
67:1.5 Error suggests lack of intellectual keenness; evil, deficiency of wisdom; sin, abject spiritual poverty; but iniquity is indicative of vanishing personality control.
67:1.6 And when sin has so many times been chosen and so often been repeated, it may become habitual. Habitual sinners can easily become iniquitous, become wholehearted rebels against the universe and all of its divine realities. While all manner of sins may be forgiven, we doubt whether the established iniquiter would ever sincerely experience sorrow for his misdeeds or accept forgiveness for his sins.
