The Fruits of Progress

We are currently in the twelfth printing of the English edition. Some 285,000 copies of The URANTIA Book in all languages have been printed and over 250,000 sold or placed in libraries. The book has been translated into French, (recently revised and corrected by a French translation team that worked on this revision for 12 years), Spanish (the first Spanish printing is almost sold out), and Finnish (there are more Finns reading the book per capita than anywhere else in the world). In addition, translations into Dutch, Russian, Korean, and Swedish are well under way, with translations into German, Italian, Estonian, and Portuguese in the planning stages.

URANTIA Foundation, in association with a professional recording studio, publishes the English book on 96 audio cassettes. The Foundation also publishes a computer version in English, French, and Finnish and will be publishing a computer version for the Spanish translation. These computer versions have a powerful search mechanism for researching any word or concept found in the book. Furthermore, a hardcover, exhaustive Concordance is available in English as well as an index in Finnish.

From the URANTIA Foundation headquarters in Chicago, we maintain a central hub which efficiently ships over 10,000 books a year with a normal turn-around time of 24-48 hours. The Foundation's staff of only four persons also responds to about 300 reader service inquiries every month and performs numerous other tasks related to fostering, coordinating, and facilitating the growing interest in The URANTIA Book. Great progress has resulted from the opening of Foundation offices in Australia, Finland, England, and France, with several others currently being organized. Since its inception in August, 1993, thirteen Associations of International URANTIA Association have been chartered in Finland, Australia-New Zealand, and the United States, with plans underway for Associations in France and several other states of the United States.

While much work remains to be done, URANTIA Foundation has had noteworthy success in its work of publishing, protecting, and disseminating The URANTIA Book. More and more people every day are learning about the book; more and more people are reading it; and more and more people are dedicating themselves to its study and to the living of its teachings.

Given the above successes and the Foundation's efforts toward future growth, the ongoing vehemence of the opponents of the Foundation is somewhat hard to fathom. It is easier to criticize than to construct, easier to complain than to contribute. But the distortions and the outright falsehoods which have been repeatedly and publicly leveled against URANTIA Foundation by a vocal minority are well beyond the bounds of fair play and honest disagreement. We would like to address some of these issues as they apply to the recent court case.