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Paper 51 - The Planetary Adams

The Urantia Book

Paper 51

The Planetary Adams

51:0.1 (580.1)DURING the dispensation of a Planetary Prince, primitive man reaches the limit of natural evolutionary development, and this biologic attainment signals the System Sovereign to dispatch to such a world the second order of sonship, the biologic uplifters. These Sons, for there are two of them—the Material Son and Daughter—are usually known on a planet as Adam and Eve. The original Material Son of Satania is Adam, and those who go to the system worlds as biologic uplifters always carry the name of this first and original Son of their unique order.

51:0.2 (580.2)These Sons are the material gift of the Creator Son to the inhabited worlds. Together with the Planetary Prince, they remain on their planet of assignment throughout the evolutionary course of such a sphere. Such an adventure on a world having a Planetary Prince is not much of a hazard, but on an apostate planet, a realm without a spiritual ruler and deprived of interplanetary communication, such a mission is fraught with grave danger.

51:0.3 (580.3)Although you cannot hope to know all about the work of these Sons on all the worlds of Satania and other systems, other papers depict more fully the life and experiences of the interesting pair, Adam and Eve, who came from the corps of the biologic uplifters of Jerusem to upstep the Urantia races. While there was a miscarriage of the ideal plans for improving your native races, still, Adam’s mission was not in vain; Urantia has profited immeasurably from the gift of Adam and Eve, and among their fellows and in the councils on high their work is not reckoned as a total loss.

1. Origin and Nature of the Material Sons of God

51:1.1 (580.4)The material or sex Sons and Daughters are the offspring of the Creator Son; the Universe Mother Spirit does not participate in the production of these beings who are destined to function as physical uplifters on the evolutionary worlds.

51:1.2 (580.5)The material order of sonship is not uniform throughout the local universe. The Creator Son produces only one pair of these beings in each local system; these original pairs are diverse in nature, being attuned to the life pattern of their respective systems. This is a necessary provision since otherwise the reproductive potential of the Adams would be nonfunctional with that of the evolving mortal beings of the worlds of any one particular system. The Adam and Eve who came to Urantia were descended from the original Satania pair of Material Sons.

51:1.3 (580.6)Material Sons vary in height from eight to ten feet, and their bodies glow with the brilliance of radiant light of a violet hue. While material blood circulates through their material bodies, they are also surcharged with divine energy and saturated with celestial light. These Material Sons (the Adams) and Material Daughters (the Eves) are equal to each other, differing only in reproductive nature and in certain chemical endowments. They are equal but differential, male and female—hence complemental—and are designed to serve on almost all assignments in pairs.

51:1.4 (581.1)The Material Sons enjoy a dual nutrition; they are really dual in nature and constitution, partaking of materialized energy much as do the physical beings of the realm, while their immortal existence is fully maintained by the direct and automatic intake of certain sustaining cosmic energies. Should they fail on some mission of assignment or even consciously and deliberately rebel, this order of Sons becomes isolated, cut off from connection with the universe source of light and life. Thereupon they become practically material beings, destined to take the course of material life on the world of their assignment and compelled to look to the universe magistrates for adjudication. Material death will eventually terminate the planetary career of such an unfortunate and unwise Material Son or Daughter.

51:1.5 (581.2)An original or directly created Adam and Eve are immortal by inherent endowment just as are all other orders of local universe sonship, but a diminution of immortality potential characterizes their sons and daughters. This original couple cannot transmit unconditioned immortality to their procreated sons and daughters. Their progeny are dependent for continuing life on unbroken intellectual synchrony with the mind-gravity circuit of the Spirit. Since the inception of the system of Satania, thirteen Planetary Adams have been lost in rebellion and default and 681,204 in the subordinate positions of trust. Most of these defections occurred at the time of the Lucifer rebellion.

51:1.6 (581.3)While living as permanent citizens on the system capitals, even when functioning on descending missions to the evolutionary planets, the Material Sons do not possess Thought Adjusters, but it is through these very services that they acquire experiential capacity for Adjuster indwellment and the Paradise ascension career. These unique and wonderfully useful beings are the connecting links between the spiritual and physical worlds. They are concentrated on the system headquarters, where they reproduce and carry on as material citizens of the realm, and whence they are dispatched to the evolutionary worlds.

51:1.7 (581.4)Unlike the other created Sons of planetary service, the material order of sonship is not, by nature, invisible to material creatures like the inhabitants of Urantia. These Sons of God can be seen, understood, and can, in turn, actually mingle with the creatures of time, could even procreate with them, though this role of biologic upliftment usually falls to the progeny of the Planetary Adams.

51:1.8 (581.5)On Jerusem the loyal children of any Adam and Eve are immortal, but the offspring of a Material Son and Daughter procreated subsequent to their arrival on an evolutionary planet are not thus immune to natural death. There occurs a change in the life-transmitting mechanism when these Sons are rematerialized for reproductive function on an evolutionary world. The Life Carriers designedly deprive the Planetary Adams and Eves of the power of begetting undying sons and daughters. If they do not default, an Adam and Eve on a planetary mission can live on indefinitely, but within certain limits their children experience decreasing longevity with each succeeding generation.

2. Transit of the Planetary Adams

51:2.1 (582.1)Upon receipt of the news that another inhabited world has attained the height of physical evolution, the System Sovereign convenes the corps of Material Sons and Daughters on the system capital; and following the discussion of the needs of such an evolutionary world, two of the volunteering group—an Adam and an Eve of the senior corps of Material Sons—are selected to undertake the adventure, to submit to the deep sleep preparatory to being enseraphimed and transported from their home of associated service to the new realm of new opportunities and new dangers.

51:2.2 (582.2)Adams and Eves are semimaterial creatures and, as such, are not transportable by seraphim. They must undergo dematerialization on the system capital before they can be enseraphimed for transport to the world of assignment. The transport seraphim are able to effect such changes in the Material Sons and in other semimaterial beings as enable them to be enseraphimed and thus to be transported through space from one world or system to another. About three days of standard time are consumed in this transport preparation, and it requires the co-operation of a Life Carrier to restore such a dematerialized creature to normal existence upon arrival at the end of the seraphic-transport journey.

51:2.3 (582.3)While there is this dematerializing technique for preparing the Adams for transit from Jerusem to the evolutionary worlds, there is no equivalent method for taking them away from such worlds unless the entire planet is to be emptied, in which event emergency installation of the dematerialization technique is made for the entire salvable population. If some physical catastrophe should doom the planetary residence of an evolving race, the Melchizedeks and the Life Carriers would install the technique of dematerialization for all survivors, and by seraphic transport these beings would be carried away to the new world prepared for their continuing existence. The evolution of a human race, once initiated on a world of space, must proceed quite independently of the physical survival of that planet, but during the evolutionary ages it is not otherwise intended that a Planetary Adam or Eve shall leave their chosen world.

51:2.4 (582.4)Upon arrival at their planetary destination the Material Son and Daughter are rematerialized under the direction of the Life Carriers. This entire process takes ten to twenty-eight days of Urantia time. The unconsciousness of the seraphic slumber continues throughout this entire period of reconstruction. When the reassembly of the physical organism is completed, these Material Sons and Daughters stand in their new homes and on their new worlds to all intents and purposes just as they were before submitting to the dematerializing process on Jerusem.

3. The Adamic Missions

51:3.1 (582.5)On the inhabited worlds the Material Sons and Daughters construct their own garden homes, soon being assisted by their own children. Usually the site of the garden has been selected by the Planetary Prince, and his corporeal staff do much of the preliminary work of preparation with the help of many of the higher types of native races.

51:3.2 (583.1)These Gardens of Eden are so named in honor of Edentia, the constellation capital, and because they are patterned after the botanic grandeur of the headquarters world of the Most High Fathers. Such garden homes are usually located in a secluded section and in a near-tropic zone. They are wonderful creations on an average world. You can judge nothing of these beautiful centers of culture by the fragmentary account of the aborted development of such an undertaking on Urantia.

51:3.3 (583.2)A Planetary Adam and Eve are, in potential, the full gift of physical grace to the mortal races. The chief business of such an imported pair is to multiply and to uplift the children of time. But there is no immediate interbreeding between the people of the garden and those of the world; for many generations Adam and Eve remain biologically segregated from the evolutionary mortals while they build up a strong race of their order. This is the origin of the violet race on the inhabited worlds.

51:3.4 (583.3)The plans for race upstepping are prepared by the Planetary Prince and his staff and are executed by Adam and Eve. And this was where your Material Son and his companion were placed at great disadvantage when they arrived on Urantia. Caligastia offered crafty and effective opposition to the Adamic mission; and notwithstanding that the Melchizedek receivers of Urantia had duly warned both Adam and Eve concerning the planetary dangers inherent in the presence of the rebellious Planetary Prince, this archrebel, by a wily stratagem, outmaneuvered the Edenic pair and entrapped them into a violation of the covenant of their trusteeship as the visible rulers of your world. The traitorous Planetary Prince did succeed in compromising your Adam and Eve, but he failed in his effort to involve them in the Lucifer rebellion.

51:3.5 (583.4)The fifth order of angels, the planetary helpers, are attached to the Adamic mission, always accompanying the Planetary Adams on their world adventures. The corps of initial assignment is usually about one hundred thousand. When the work of the Urantia Adam and Eve was prematurely launched, when they departed from the ordained plan, it was one of the seraphic Voices of the Garden who remonstrated with them concerning their reprehensible conduct. And your narrative of this occurrence well illustrates the manner in which your planetary traditions have tended to ascribe everything supernatural to the Lord God. Because of this, Urantians have often become confused concerning the nature of the Universal Father since the words and acts of all his associates and subordinates have been so generally attributed to him. In the case of Adam and Eve, the angel of the Garden was none other than the chief of the planetary helpers then on duty. This seraphim, Solonia, proclaimed the miscarriage of the divine plan and requisitioned the return of the Melchizedek receivers to Urantia.

51:3.6 (583.5)The secondary midway creatures are indigenous to the Adamic missions. As with the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince, the descendants of the Material Sons and Daughters are of two orders: their physical children and the secondary order of midway creatures. These material but ordinarily invisible planetary ministers contribute much to the advancement of civilization and even to the subjection of insubordinate minorities who may seek to subvert social development and spiritual progress.

51:3.7 (583.6)The secondary midwayers should not be confused with the primary order, who date from the near times of the arrival of the Planetary Prince. On Urantia a majority of these earlier midway creatures went into rebellion with Caligastia and have, since Pentecost, been interned. Many of the Adamic group who did not remain loyal to the planetary administration are likewise interned.

51:3.8 (584.1)On the day of Pentecost the loyal primary and the secondary midwayers effected a voluntary union and have functioned as one unit in world affairs ever since. They serve under the leadership of loyal midwayers alternately chosen from the two groups.

51:3.9 (584.2)Your world has been visited by four orders of sonship: Caligastia, the Planetary Prince; Adam and Eve of the Material Sons of God; Machiventa Melchizedek, the “sage of Salem” in the days of Abraham; and Christ Michael, who came as the Paradise bestowal Son. How much more effective and beautiful it would have been had Michael, the supreme ruler of the universe of Nebadon, been welcomed to your world by a loyal and efficient Planetary Prince and a devoted and successful Material Son, both of whom could have done so much to enhance the lifework and mission of the bestowal Son! But not all worlds have been so unfortunate as Urantia, neither has the mission of the Planetary Adams always been so difficult or so hazardous. When they are successful, they contribute to the development of a great people, continuing as the visible heads of planetary affairs even far into the age when such a world is settled in light and life.

4. The Six Evolutionary Races

51:4.1 (584.3)The race of dominance during the early ages of the inhabited worlds is the red man, who ordinarily is the first to attain human levels of development. But while the red man is the senior race of the planets, the succeeding colored peoples begin to make their appearances very early in the age of mortal emergence.

51:4.2 (584.4)The earlier races are somewhat superior to the later; the red man stands far above the indigo—black—race. The Life Carriers impart the full bestowal of the living energies to the initial or red race, and each succeeding evolutionary manifestation of a distinct group of mortals represents variation at the expense of the original endowment. Even mortal stature tends to decrease from the red man down to the indigo race, although on Urantia unexpected strains of giantism appeared among the green and orange peoples.

51:4.3 (584.5)On those worlds having all six evolutionary races the superior peoples are the first, third, and fifth races—the red, the yellow, and the blue. The evolutionary races thus alternate in capacity for intellectual growth and spiritual development, the second, fourth, and sixth being somewhat less endowed. These secondary races are the peoples that are missing on certain worlds; they are the ones that have been exterminated on many others. It is a misfortune on Urantia that you so largely lost your superior blue men, except as they persist in your amalgamated “white race.” The loss of your orange and green stocks is not of such serious concern.

51:4.4 (584.6)The evolution of six—or of three—colored races, while seeming to deteriorate the original endowment of the red man, provides certain very desirable variations in mortal types and affords an otherwise unattainable expression of diverse human potentials. These modifications are beneficial to the progress of mankind as a whole provided they are subsequently upstepped by the imported Adamic or violet race. On Urantia this usual plan of amalgamation was not extensively carried out, and this failure to execute the plan of race evolution makes it impossible for you to understand very much about the status of these peoples on an average inhabited planet by observing the remnants of these early races on your world.

51:4.5 (585.1)In the early days of racial development there is a slight tendency for the red, the yellow, and the blue men to interbreed; there is a similar tendency for the orange, green, and indigo races to intermingle.

51:4.6 (585.2)The more backward humans are usually employed as laborers by the more progressive races. This accounts for the origin of slavery on the planets during the early ages. The orange men are usually subdued by the red and reduced to the status of servants—sometimes exterminated. The yellow and red men often fraternize, but not always. The yellow race usually enslaves the green, while the blue man subdues the indigo. These races of primitive men think no more of utilizing the services of their backward fellows in compulsory labor than Urantians would of buying and selling horses and cattle.

51:4.7 (585.3)On most normal worlds involuntary servitude does not survive the dispensation of the Planetary Prince, although mental defectives and social delinquents are often still compelled to perform involuntary labor. But on all normal spheres this sort of primitive slavery is abolished soon after the arrival of the imported violet or Adamic race.

51:4.8 (585.4)These six evolutionary races are destined to be blended and exalted by amalgamation with the progeny of the Adamic uplifters. But before these peoples are blended, the inferior and unfit are largely eliminated. The Planetary Prince and the Material Son, with other suitable planetary authorities, pass upon the fitness of the reproducing strains. The difficulty of executing such a radical program on Urantia consists in the absence of competent judges to pass upon the biologic fitness or unfitness of the individuals of your world races. Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks.

5. Racial Amalgamation—
Bestowal of the Adamic Blood

51:5.1 (585.5)When a Planetary Adam and Eve arrive on an inhabited world, they have been fully instructed by their superiors as to the best way to effect the improvement of the existing races of intelligent beings. The plan of procedure is not uniform; much is left to the judgment of the ministering pair, and mistakes are not infrequent, especially on disordered, insurrectionary worlds, such as Urantia.

51:5.2 (585.6)Usually the violet peoples do not begin to amalgamate with the planetary natives until their own group numbers over one million. But in the meantime the staff of the Planetary Prince proclaims that the children of the Gods have come down, as it were, to be one with the races of men; and the people eagerly look forward to the day when announcement will be made that those who have qualified as belonging to the superior racial strains may proceed to the Garden of Eden and be there chosen by the sons and daughters of Adam as the evolutionary fathers and mothers of the new and blended order of mankind.

51:5.3 (585.7)On normal worlds the Planetary Adam and Eve never mate with the evolutionary races. This work of biologic betterment is a function of the Adamic progeny. But these Adamites do not go out among the races; the prince’s staff bring to the Garden of Eden the superior men and women for voluntary mating with the Adamic offspring. And on most worlds it is considered the highest honor to be selected as a candidate for mating with the sons and daughters of the garden.

51:5.4 (586.1)For the first time the racial wars and other tribal struggles are diminished, while the world races increasingly strive to qualify for recognition and admission to the garden. You can at best have but a very meager idea of how this competitive struggle comes to occupy the center of all activities on a normal planet. This whole scheme of race improvement was early wrecked on Urantia.

51:5.5 (586.2)The violet race is a monogamous people, and every evolutionary man or woman uniting with the Adamic sons and daughters pledges not to take other mates and to instruct his or her children in single-matedness. The children of each of these unions are educated and trained in the schools of the Planetary Prince and then are permitted to go forth to the race of their evolutionary parent, there to marry among the selected groups of superior mortals.

51:5.6 (586.3)When this strain of the Material Sons is added to the evolving races of the worlds, a new and greater era of evolutionary progress is initiated. Following this procreative outpouring of imported ability and superevolutionary traits there ensues a succession of rapid strides in civilization and racial development; in one hundred thousand years more progress is made than in a million years of former struggle. On your world, even in the face of the miscarriage of the ordained plans, great progress has been made since the gift to your peoples of Adam’s life plasm.

51:5.7 (586.4)But while the pure-line children of a planetary Garden of Eden can bestow themselves upon the superior members of the evolutionary races and thereby upstep the biologic level of mankind, it would not prove beneficial for the higher strains of Urantia mortals to mate with the lower races; such an unwise procedure would jeopardize all civilization on your world. Having failed to achieve race harmonization by the Adamic technique, you must now work out your planetary problem of race improvement by other and largely human methods of adaptation and control.

6. The Edenic Regime

51:6.1 (586.5)On most of the inhabited worlds the Gardens of Eden remain as superb cultural centers and continue to function as the social patterns of planetary conduct and usage age after age. Even in early times when the violet peoples are relatively segregated, their schools receive suitable candidates from among the world races, while the industrial developments of the garden open up new channels of commercial intercourse. Thus do the Adams and Eves and their progeny contribute to the sudden expansion of culture and to the rapid improvement of the evolutionary races of their worlds. And all of these relationships are augmented and sealed by the amalgamation of the evolutionary races and the sons of Adam, resulting in the immediate upstepping of biologic status, the quickening of intellectual potential, and the enhancement of spiritual receptivity.

51:6.2 (586.6)On normal worlds the garden headquarters of the violet race becomes the second center of world culture and, jointly with the headquarters city of the Planetary Prince, sets the pace for the development of civilization. For centuries the city headquarters schools of the Planetary Prince and the garden schools of Adam and Eve are contemporary. They are usually not very far apart, and they work together in harmonious co-operation.

51:6.3 (587.1)Think what it would mean on your world if somewhere in the Levant there were a world center of civilization, a great planetary university of culture, which had functioned uninterruptedly for 37,000 years. And again, pause to consider how the moral authority of even such an ancient center would be reinforced were there situated not far-distant still another and older headquarters of celestial ministry whose traditions would exert a cumulative force of 500,000 years of integrated evolutionary influence. It is custom which eventually spreads the ideals of Eden to a whole world.

51:6.4 (587.2)The schools of the Planetary Prince are primarily concerned with philosophy, religion, morals, and the higher intellectual and artistic achievements. The garden schools of Adam and Eve are usually devoted to practical arts, fundamental intellectual training, social culture, economic development, trade relations, physical efficiency, and civil government. Eventually these world centers amalgamate, but this actual affiliation sometimes does not occur until the times of the first Magisterial Son.

51:6.5 (587.3)The continuing existence of the Planetary Adam and Eve, together with the pure-line nucleus of the violet race, imparts that stability of growth to Edenic culture by virtue of which it comes to act upon the civilization of a world with the compelling force of tradition. In these immortal Material Sons and Daughters we encounter the last and the indispensable link connecting God with man, bridging the almost infinite gulf between the eternal Creator and the lowest finite personalities of time. Here is a being of high origin who is physical, material, even a sex creature like Urantia mortals, one who can see and comprehend the invisible Planetary Prince and interpret him to the mortal creatures of the realm, for the Material Sons and Daughters are able to see all of the lower orders of spirit beings; they visualize the Planetary Prince and his entire staff, visible and invisible.

51:6.6 (587.4)With the passing of centuries, through the amalgamation of their progeny with the races of men, this same Material Son and Daughter become accepted as the common ancestors of mankind, the common parents of the now blended descendants of the evolutionary races. It is intended that mortals who start out from an inhabited world have the experience of recognizing seven fathers:

51:6.7 (587.5)1. The biologic father—the father in the flesh.

51:6.8 (587.6)2. The father of the realm—the Planetary Adam.

51:6.9 (587.7)3. The father of the spheres—the System Sovereign.

51:6.10 (587.8)4. The Most High Father—the Constellation Father.

51:6.11 (587.9)5. The universe Father—the Creator Son and supreme ruler of the local creations.

51:6.12 (587.10)6. The super-Fathers—the Ancients of Days who govern the superuniverse.

51:6.13 (587.11)7. The spirit or Havona Father—the Universal Father, who dwells on Paradise and bestows his spirit to live and work in the minds of the lowly creatures who inhabit the universe of universes.

7. United Administration

51:7.1 (587.12)From time to time the Avonal Sons of Paradise come to the inhabited worlds for judicial actions, but the first Avonal to arrive on a magisterial mission inaugurates the fourth dispensation of an evolutionary world of time and space. On some planets where this Magisterial Son is universally accepted, he remains for one age; and thus the planet prospers under the joint rulership of three Sons: the Planetary Prince, the Material Son, and the Magisterial Son, the latter two being visible to all the inhabitants of the realm.

51:7.2 (588.1)Before the first Magisterial Son concludes his mission on a normal evolutionary world, there has been effected the union of the educational and administrative work of the Planetary Prince and the Material Son. This amalgamation of the dual supervision of a planet brings into existence a new and effective order of world administration. Upon the retirement of the Magisterial Son the Planetary Adam assumes the outward direction of the sphere. The Material Son and Daughter thus act jointly as planetary administrators until the settling of the world in the era of light and life; whereupon the Planetary Prince is elevated to the position of Planetary Sovereign. During this age of advanced evolution, Adam and Eve become what might be called joint prime ministers of the glorified realm.

51:7.3 (588.2)As soon as the new and consolidated capital of the evolving world has become well established, and just as fast as competent subordinate administrators can be properly trained, subcapitals are founded on remote land bodies and among the different peoples. Before the arrival of another dispensational Son, from fifty to one hundred of these subcenters will have been organized.

51:7.4 (588.3)The Planetary Prince and his staff still foster the spiritual and philosophic domains of activity. Adam and Eve pay particular attention to the physical, scientific, and economic status of the realm. Both groups equally devote their energies to the promotion of the arts, social relations, and intellectual achievements.

51:7.5 (588.4)By the time of the inauguration of the fifth dispensation of world affairs, a magnificent administration of planetary activities has been achieved. Mortal existence on such a well-managed sphere is indeed stimulating and profitable. And if Urantians could only observe life on such a planet, they would immediately appreciate the value of those things which their world has lost through embracing evil and participating in rebellion.

51:7.6 (588.5)[Presented by a Secondary Lanonandek Son of the Reserve Corps.]