The Revelators' Plan and Urantia Foundation
The Revelators' Plan and Urantia Foundation
by Georges Michelson-Dupont, Trustee
(Speech at the International IDA Conference in Helsinki.)
First of all I would like, in the name of my fellow Trustees, the Executive Director Tonia Baney, and all the staff of Urantia Foundation, to welcome you to the first international IUA conference ever held outside the US territory.
The year 1986 was an exceptional year for international contact within the Urantia movement. The first International Conference for readers of The Urantia Book ever held outside the US took place in Montvillargennes (France) and twelve Finnish people attended!
Facts, meanings, and values is the general theme of this international conference. Another significant and related threefold association of words is Origin, History, and Destiny. While the entire conference will be devoted to the general theme, I would like to take advantage of the next 30 minutes to talk about the origin and development of the Urantia Papers in the early days, to introduce Urantia Foundation in this historical context, its trust, responsibilities, and programs and, from there, I will try to explain how we conduct ourselves to fulfill that purpose and the direction that Urantia Foundation is taking for the future.
the fifth epochal revelation: The Urantia Book. Regarding the succession of Epochal Revelations, we are told that Urantia is a decimal planet and subject to experiments. We are also told that our unfortunate world has suffered from betrayal, impatience, and quarantine and therefore we know that " Urantia is not proceeding in the normal order." [597:2].
I guess the spiritual beings in charge of the welfare of our planet were confronted with the following problem: what sort of epochal revelation would they offer to Urantia as the fifth, keeping in mind that the first two failed, the third was an emergency revelation, and the fourth died on the cross with Jesus' teachings and became somewhat distorted and occidentalized.
As we see, they have chosen a book. And of course we can conjecture about the many reasons for such a choice. Following are two that I believe are important:
1. A book is a perfect modern vehicle to convey information and concepts to people. Therefore any individual, as well as each and every family, can be exposed to it. It can also be translated and widely spread at low cost all over the world. But there are also some dangers: for instance, the text can be modified, altered, simplified, digested, and/or dismembered. All of this would lower the strength and efficiency of the revelation. It could simply be destroyed or lost if not enough of the integral text is spread. The quality and accuracy of the translations will be a determining factor for its success to all non-English speaking countries.
2. A book is an intellectual challenge to the human mind. We had the physical upliftment of humanity with Adam and Eve. We had the spiritual upliftment with Jesus and his unmatchable teachings. We now have the intellectual upliftment with The Urantia Book. Therefore it is important that the integrity and the integrality of the text, as well as the quality of the translations, be respected and spread as a whole, in order to be safe and to continue, century after century, to challenge the human mind.
While the revelators were preparing to launch this revelation, it is my belief that they were also conscious of the possible dangers mentioned above. As part of their investigations for the place, the timing, and the people, they also looked very carefully at human laws and organizations.
In the early twentieth century Dr. William S. Sadler, a prominent physician and psychiatrist practicing in Chicago, became the acknowledged head of the group known as the Contact Commission, who received the messages and instructions from the Revelators which resulted in The Urantia Book. In a document by Dr. Sadler, he states, "The Commissioners were the custodians of the Urantia manuscript'. They were also charged with the full responsibility for supervising all the details connected with the publication of the Book, securing the international copyrights, etc."
These statements make it very clear that the Revelators had concerns for the protection of the Papers under copyright laws. The question is "who charged them" with those responsibilities? And the only rational answer is: the Revelators did. And the full authority for the protection of The Urantia Book as it is stated in its Declaration of Trust was placed in the hands of the Trustees of Urantia Foundation.
"I admonish you ever to remember that your mission among men is to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom - the reality of the fatherhood of God and the truth of the sonship of man. Proclaim the whole truth of the good news, not just a part of the saving gospel." [2052:4]