Chapter Four

SHORTLY BEFORE THE ENCOUNTER with the "electrifying" personality who spoke through the sleeping subject and claimed to be from another world, Dr. Sadler prepared to give the Forum a series of talks on "Mental Hygiene." Just as he got behind the lectern on Sunday afternoon, a participant asked if the Doctor had any information about a psychic who had advertised in the newspaper and was performing in downtownChicago at the time. Dr. Sadler replied that he did not, and he added:

"With one or two exceptions, all the psychic phenomena which I have investigated have turned out to be either conscious or unconscious frauds. Some were deliberate frauds others were those peculiar cases in which the performer was a victim of the deceptions of his own subconscious mind."¹

Another member of the group spoke up. "What were the exceptions? Doctor, if you have found cases which you have been unable to solve, this would be interesting. Tell us more about them."

"There is one peculiar case I have not yet been able to solve," the Doctor answered. "I am presently working on it." Dr. Sadler then requested that Dr. Lena get some notes she had taken during a recent session with the subject. It should be pointed out that there was no secrecy connected with the case at the time (other than professional respect for the subject's anonymity). The Urantia Papers had not begun to appear.²

Dr. Lena Sadler began to read her recent notes to the fascinated group. Later, Dr. Sadler commented about the energetic reaction of the assembly: "The group manifested such an interest in the case that I never did get around to giving any of the mental health talks I had planned." The gathering then began to focus their informal debates on psychic phenomena. These discussions went on for several weeks, and were still in progress when the Sadlers received the momentous challenge from the "electrifying personality," the alleged celestial being who had admonished them to ask more significant questions.³

Dr. Sadler elected to tell the Forum about the rather robust provocation that he and Dr. Lena had received at the hands of the purported celestial visitor. He suggested that the members might help formulate the most difficult questions they could think of and bring them back the next Sunday. The members agreed, and in the immediately ensuing discussion it was decided to start out with questions about the origin of the cosmos, Deity, creation, and other such subjects far beyond the present day knowledge of humankind. The following Sunday hundreds of questions were brought in. It took several days to sort and classify these questions, and discard duplicates.⁴

So it was, in December of 1924, that the Sadlers were prepared to present a formidable number of questions in response to the professed celestial challenge. They held these questions in readiness for the next session with the sleeping subject, hoping for an opportunity of "calling the bluff" of the alleged higher intelligences. Dr. Sadler felt he was "loaded for bear," with 181 written queries of rather profound magnitude.⁵ The first of these questions were: "Is there really a God? And, if so, what is he like?"⁶ However, weeks passed by, and nothing happened.

Then, at six a.m. one morning, the telephone rang. It was the wife of the sleeping subject.

"Please come over here, quick!" she said.

"What's happened?" asked Dr. Sadler. "Is he in the sleeping state?"

"He's asleep alright, but that's not it," she replied. "Please get over here, quickly!"

The Sadlers "dressed like volunteer firemen" and rushed to the residence. When they arrived, they were out of breath and full of curiosity.⁷

The subject's wife led them to a desk in the study. She picked up a voluminous handwritten manuscript and handed it to Dr. Sadler. "Where did this come from?" Sadler asked.

"I don't know," the distraught lady said. "He made strange noises in his sleep that awakened me. I then spotted this on his desk."

"Has he been out of bed?" asked Dr. Sadler.

"Not to my knowledge. I don't see how he could have gotten out of bed without my being awakened. And, he's still asleep. I don't see how he could have done it."

The Sadlers began to examine the nearly 500 pages of tightly handwritten text.⁸ The manuscript seemed to be addressing the 181 questions that the Sadlers had obtained from the Forum! The astonished Sadlers went into the bedroom. The subject was in a normal sleep at this time, and awakened easily.

"Do you know what you have been doing in your sleep?" asked Dr. Sadler.

"I haven't been doing anything," replied the subject.

"Oh, yes you have! Didn't you write this?" Sadler asked.

"No. I haven't written anything."⁹

Dr. Sadler phoned his office and asked Christy to immediately bring over a grip device that he used to test muscular fatigue. He reasoned that if the subject had actually written the document that night, his arm would show evidence of exhaustion. But when Christy showed up and the gentleman was tested, there was no evidence of fatigue. The Sadlers obtained the permission of the subject and his wife to remove the manuscript and have the pages typed.

The amazing manuscript

It should be noted that events had taken a distinct turn. What had happened was remarkably different from the earlier sessions with the subject "speaking" and Dr. Lena Sadler taking notes. Though what had occurred had further rocked Dr. Sadler's scientific objectivity, he remained resolute that there must be a plausible explanation for what had transpired. Nevertheless, he was losing ground, and he was not a man accustomed to being totally confounded. He had a case that had at first seemed to be ordinary automatic talking, but one that had defied traditional analysis. Now, he was confronting what plainly appeared to be at first blush automatic writing. But the analysis of this new phenomena was even more problematic than the primary sessions.

Aside from how the Forum's list of questions were discerned in the first place and the prodigious content of the manuscript, there were other problems. Dr. Sadler estimated that it would take a normal individual writing at top speed seven to eight hours to produce the document. But the content of the material was so profound and intelligent that Dr. Sadler doubted anyone had the capacity to generate the material that quickly.¹⁰

The doctors had to face another possibility: that material could have been prepared over a period of weeks or months, and the entire episode could be a hoax. As scientists, the next obvious step for the Sadlers was to get handwriting experts to verify that the manuscript was written by the subject. If this proved to be the case, there could be no scientific alternative but to conclude that the manuscript was either a product of unconscious automatic writing or it was a deliberate fabrication regardless of the seeming sincere testimony of the subject and his wife.

Several handwriting experts were employed, and they all agreed that the material was not in the handwriting of the sleeping subject. Many years later in Culver, Indiana, Meredith Sprunger had a conversation with Clara Stahl, a CPA and a member of his congregation. Clara told him that years before when she was working in Chicago she went to the Sadlers for medical treatment. She was invited to attend the Forum, which she did. She recalled that handwriting experts had determined the Papers were not in the handwriting of the subject. Not only was the subject tested, his wife was also tested. The handwriting was determined to be of unknown origin.¹¹

Mark Kulieke writes on page nine of Birth of a Revelation:

"Although Dr. Sadler refers to written messages of the contact individual in The Mind at Mischief, handwriting experts determined that the written material was not in the handwriting of the human subject or those around him. The contact group speculated on the possibility that the writing was that of a secondary midwayer."

We can reasonably assume the reason why the "contact group" may have speculated that a "secondary midwayer" may have done the physical writing of the Papers. In History Two, on page four, we learn that the Contact Commission's exhaustive efforts, observations and investigations, "utterly failed to reveal the technique of reducing the messages to writing."

The handwriting question

Not all Urantian historians will agree with the assessment that the handwriting in the original text was of unknown origin. While generally believing in the authenticity of the Revelation, some nonetheless believe the text of the Urantia Papers was written in the handwriting of the subject. However, it is important to note that virtually all agree that the subject was never seen to be writing the text or any messages, and nearly all agree he did not actually do so. Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of the handwriting being the subject's is based upon an Oklahoma audio tape of Bill Sadler, Jr., dated 2/18/62, in which he answers the question of whether the text was written in pencil:

"All written in pencil, yes. All written in the handwriting of this individual, who ruefully remarked: `If they ever want to draw on my bank account, I -- I'm a dead duck because the bank will pay on that signature.'"

It is unclear what is meant by "that signature." It would be absurd, with their concern for his anonymity, for the Midwayers to sign the name of the sleeping subject to the text! Also, though the comments seem fairly definitive, they should be considered in context with Bill Sadler's remarks earlier in the same tape that establish the fact that no one ever saw the subject writing.

"Now, during all these years, this particular individual, who is referred to in the book, was never seen to write one of these Papers. And don't think we weren't wearing gumshoes looking. If he wrote them, all I can say is he was more clever than the whole lot of us. He was never observed to write them."

Forumite Herman Schell is said to have stated that they even followed the subject to work in an effort to "catch" him writing the text. Even the critical Harold Sherman writes that the subject was asleep in bed with his wife at the time he was supposed to be writing the material.

How, then, were the Papers written? Bill Sadler goes on in this tape to propose a remarkable theory, which we will explore in detail in the next chapter:

"This is the theory I accept. I want you to visualize several points in space. . . we'll call them point A, point B, point C, and point D. I think the Papers were dictated, or conceived, at point A. And I think if we could have been present at point A when any one of these Papers were being written, we would have seen absolutely nothing. At point A was perhaps this Divine Counselor who signs Paper One."

Bill Sadler then digresses to discuss problems in translating the Language of Uversa, the Capital of the superuniverse of Orvonton, into the language of Salvington, (our local universe) and finally into English. Then he continues on with his theory of how the Papers were materialized:

"Now, you'd have something to see at point B, but it would be very dull. It would be a man asleep, some ordinary looking guy, just asleep, doing nothing. Now, if you could get to point C, this would be exciting! You remember the day of the resurrection, the soldiers saw the stone roll away, apparently by itself? Now, that stone was being pushed . . . by Secondary Midwayers who are non- corporeal beings who can deal with physical substances. At point C, I think you would have seen a very exciting phenomenon, a pencil moving over paper with no visible means of propulsion. That's where the physical writing was consummated." [Note: Point "D", mentioned earlier, was not referred to again on the tape].

Thus, most Urantian scholars agree that the subject did not write the Papers, and most agree that the writing was probably done by a Secondary Midwayer. Surely the Midwayers could have accomplished the feat of duplicating the sleeping subject's handwriting had they elected to do so. Yet, to what end? Not only would this be at odds with their goal of keeping the subject's identity unknown, an intrusion into the human mind to this degree would not be in agreement with the philosophy of the Papers. Secondary Midwayers can penetrate the human mind for purposes of attaining varying degrees of contact with the fragment of God (called the Thought Adjuster) that normally indwells each person. (1258 - par. 1) -- Thought Adjusters are "quite alone in their sphere of activity in the mortal mind." (1190 - par. 2) -- Finally, Thought Adjusters make the information from diverse levels of celestial beings "meaningful" to human personalities.(425 - par. 1). The Papers state the Thought Adjuster of the human subject was used for materializing the Papers, but nowhere do they state his human mind was used. It is fair to conclude that a human's Thought Adjuster -- not a human mind -- was required for the speculative process we will explore more deeply in the next chapter.

Two additional groups of related factors, plus a philosophical principle, compel the author to the conclusion that the handwritten text of the Urantia Papers was not in the handwriting of the Contact Personality.

[1]. Dr. Sprunger's unequivocal recollections of what Dr. Sadler and Christy said, verified by Clara Stahl, support the conclusion that the material was not in the subject's handwriting. It should also be recalled that Bill Sadler, Jr. was 16 years of age at the time of the first manuscript's appearance, as documented in Chapter Three. This was about the time he enlisted in the Marines (by lying about his age). He would not actually begin to read the Urantia Papers until later, when he was home on leave from the Marines, as documented earlier. He could not have begun an intense study of the Papers until his enlistment was terminated in 1928, when he was twenty years of age. It is very likely that the testing of the handwriting had taken place quite early in the process, while Bill Sadler was away. Although he may have attended some of the early sessions involving the contact personality, his objective attention and interest at that time may be open to reasonable doubt. Finally, Dr. Sprunger states in an E-mail to me, November 8, 1999:

"Bill Sadler told me that the best guess that he and his father had about who did the handwriting producing the original text was that a Secondary Midwayer did the handwriting."

This statement, in my judgment, fits the accepted premises better than Bill Sadler's contradictory statement on the audio tape.

[2]. Dr. William Sadler was a noted expert on psychic phenomena. He often stated that he and other experts were baffled as to how the Papers were materialized. Had the Papers been in the Contact Personality's handwriting, this would have been compelling prima-facie evidence to a scientist that the material had been produced by automatic writing. If any of the text on the Papers had been spoken, it would be, self-evidently, the product of automatic talking. The doctor categorically declared that no known form of automatic writing, speaking, or psychic methods were ever employed to produce any part of the text of the Urantia Papers, as documented earlier in this book. Dr. Lena Sadler was presumably in agreement with this assessment, and was persuaded of the authenticity of the Papers long before her husband.

[3]. The philosophical principle of Ockham's Razor can be applied. Faced with conflicting analyses of a set of agreed-upon premises, all other things being equal, choose the least complicated alternative.

Why the handwriting issue is important

These concerns about handwriting seem pointless to many people. Dr. Sprunger never tires of saying that it is the message of the Papers that is the important thing, and the Urantia Revelation will not be established in our culture until many people grasp its unrivaled quality.

However, this history is prepared primarily to give readers an opportunity to make informed decisions when weighing the various debates and unresolved issues that revolve around the origin of the Urantia Papers. In the most enlightened of worlds, we would not need a new history to do this. Certainly, no individual's spiritual destiny will hinge upon whether or not they believe the Papers were originally materialized in handwriting of unknown origin. No one will suddenly accept the Urantia Papers based upon the exact date and circumstances under which Dr. Sadler met the sleeping subject. Why then, attempt to establish for new readers and future readers as many facts and reasonable assumptions as possible? Because it will be virtually impossible to establish the fact for future generations that the Urantia Papers were not simply a product of automatic writing -- another channeled work -- if it is passively assumed that they were indeed in the handwriting of the sleeping subject.

We are on a meticulous quest for truth because there are those who, because either they wish to denigrate or control the Papers, are energetically presenting only one side of the issue. In the case of the handwriting, on page 67 of How to Know What to Believe, Harold Sherman makes four references within a hundred words or so that declare the document that was produced on that night long ago was in the handwriting of the subject. Yet, in his own narrative, Sherman virtually places the subject in bed sleeping with his wife when the document was written. This paradox may be explained by Sherman's apparent desire to forcefully classify the Urantia Revelation as a common psychic phenomenon of automatic writing. He was very put out about the Urantia Paper's general dismissal of "psychic" phenomena, especially those of communication with the dead and reincarnation. Sherman's handwriting theorem was seized by Martin Gardner and others to help support their attacks on the fidelity of the Urantia Papers, and to establish they were produced by common "psychic" activities, and had human authorship.

If we who believe differently are silent, it lessens the opportunity for readers to make informed evaluations. I came to believe the Revelation long before I discovered much about its origin, as did most of the second generation of readers. Future readers, whether we prefer it or not, may learn of the origins before they have an opportunity to ponder the message. We should strive to see that a reader has enough information to establish informed conclusions. We should also aspire to a quality of analytical thinking about such questions that is consistent with the philosophy of the Urantia Papers. In the following chapter we will examine exactly what the Papers themselves say about the materialization of the Revelation.

The Forum is read the first Papers

Doctors William and Lena Sadler brought the huge typed manuscript to the Forum meeting of January 18, 1925.¹² The doctor announced to the members that their questions had been answered in amazing detail, and read the first section, or "Paper," to the group. Much later, after the meeting, the members left the building at 533 Diversey Parkway to make their way home. It seems doubtful that many of them grasped the import of what had actually happened on that January night in Chicago. Clyde Bedell, who became as staunch a Urantian as any who has ever lived, could not even recall when the first reading of the Papers took place. And he said, to his knowledge, no one at the time had a clue that they were involved with an epochal revelation.

The process of the Forum

In the ensuing weeks, a pattern developed of reading a section of the manuscript and eliciting questions from the participants in the Forum. The Forum room at Sadler's home contained about fifty folding chairs. At times Forumites filled all of the chairs and spilled into the adjacent hall. Dr. Sadler (or later, Bill Sadler, Jr.) would read a Paper. Members of the Forum would then submit queries in written form, which were collected in a fishbowl or basket and placed on a table at one side of the room. These questions would be sorted, duplicates eliminated, and the relevant ones prepared on a page or two. It is not exactly clear how they were submitted to the Revelators. Helen Carlson, who was in the Forum from 1935 on, described the question and answer process above. She said she thought the questions were then placed in a specific spot, but she was never able to discover where that spot might be.¹³

The Forum was used in a manner that "focus groups" are used in commercial marketing to study general reactions of consumers to products and advertising campaigns. The large turnover of people in the Forum was thus not so significant, since, on the average, a Forum member lasted about two years. Apparently what the celestial revelators were concerned with was general human reaction and understanding of the material that was being presented. By monitoring and evaluating reactions to the reading of the Papers, the unseen Revelators expanded and reworked the material. This process gradually formed a larger, revised manuscript better attuned to the reactions, understanding, and new questions of the Forum members. The initial arrangement was rather informal and continued for nearly eight months after the first Paper was read to the Forum. At that time, Dr. Sadler announced to the members that the Contact Commission had been instructed to make the Forum a closed group.

The Forum becomes official

Members were told they would be required to sign a secrecy pledge. In September of 1925, thirty individuals agreed to sign this pledge and the Forum officially became a closed group. Since turnover continued to be a problem, new members could be accepted, but only after being "interviewed by the officers and signing the same pledge that was signed by the original Charter Members":

"We acknowledge our pledge of secrecy, reviewing our pledge not to discuss Urantia Revelations or their subject matter with anyone save active Forum members, and to take no notes of such matter as is read or discussed at the public sessions, or make copies or notes of what we personally read."¹⁴

However, the members of the Contact Commission were the only individuals who ever knew the identity of the sleeping subject. Forum members did not attend the contact sessions.¹⁵ Forum members never saw the original manuscripts, which were kept in a safe.¹⁶ After they had been typed, Dr. Sadler told Dr. Sprunger that the original written manuscripts mysteriously disappeared from the safe. Although he tried to discover the technique that was being used, Sadler was never able to determine how this was accomplished.¹⁷ Dr. Sprunger says that Dr. Sadler told him that early on he tried various tricks to confuse the process and possibly uncover a hoax. Sadler once placed several $10 bills between certain pages of a manuscript before placing it in the safe. The manuscript disappeared and the $10 bills remained. He then placed a manuscript in a bank vault deposit box, rather than his own safe. He said the manuscript somehow disappeared, and he was later admonished that it would be desirable if he discontinued his various "tricks."

The initial question and answer process continued until 1929. We know that Dr. Sadler still harbored reservations about the procedure because of his contemporaneous commentary in The Mind at Mischief, but that he also conceded that he was exactly where he had started as far as analyzing the phenomenon that was taking place. The five year process eventually produced 57 Papers, and the final typewritten manuscript consisted of 1700 pages.¹⁸

During the total procedure, which was to continue in a similar manner for many years, the sleeping subject was the only contact involved.¹⁹

The entire text of the Urantia Papers was materialized in handwritten form.²⁰ The text was then typed, checked, and the original handwritten document was placed in a safe. (As explained, these original documents always mysteriously disappeared from the safe.) The Contact Commission had no editorial authority whatsoever. Contact Commissioners were confined to the clerical duties of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. The Urantia Papers were published in 1955 just as they were received -- to the best of human ability to do so. There was absolutely no human input as to authorship, content or arrangement.²¹

There apparently developed informal verbal communications between the Revelators and the Contact Commission, always as a group, and always in the sleeping subject's presence. These informal verbal communications with the Contact Commission as a group were probably direct, and no longer used the contact personality's vocal cords as an intermediary mechanism for the intercourse.²² How these new communications were achieved is open to question. However, in my judgment, such verbal communications are not inconsistent with the Urantia Papers in that Secondary Midwayers can affect matter under certain conditions, so they can, theoretically, produce sound waves. Such communications were administrative and had nothing to do with the text of the Urantia Papers, which was always materialized in written form by some means not fully understood.

It is also significant that verbal communications took place only under certain conditions. No less than two Contact Commissioners had to be present for them to take place.²³ This is distinguished from so-called "channeling" activities because the verbal communications in question were apparently disembodied and were always heard by at least two verifying parties. This verification precluded self-delusion. In the so-called "channeling" process words are supposedly either "heard" by an individual in private or spoken by an individual who alleges them to be coming from a disembodied authoritative entity. Corroboration -- in either of these cases -- is impossible. Perhaps these observations point to why the original method of verbal communication by means of using the sleeping subject's vocal cords may have eventually been abandoned by the Revelators. At this stage of the contact process -- (assuming that direct verbal contact was employed) -- perhaps the Contact Commissioners could handle the disembodied voices without undue stress. Even so, this technique may have sown the seeds for future problems in the human mind of one of the Commissioners, as we shall see.

Other administrative communications, likewise not related to the text, included more formal instructions to the Contact Commission in written form. Like the text, these written messages were materialized in some unknown manner. Almost all written messages had a directive on the last page reading: "To be destroyed by fire not later than the appearance of the Urantia Papers in print." No originals of any kind are known to exist.²⁴

Was a sleeping subject necessary?

The reasonably documented and defined facts above raise the question as to not only how, but why the sleeping subject was involved with the procedure of materializing the text and written messages, since the evidence indicates he was not writing them. Also, why was he apparently always present (in a sleeping, wholly unconscious state) when verbal group communications between the Contact Commission and the Midwayers took place, since there is at least some indication that his voice was no longer being used? Although we are unsure whether his voice mechanisms continued to be used for some communications, we can be fairly certain that, although the text of the Papers was finished and preparations for printing the book were set in motion in the early Forties (see Chapter Nine), the contact personality was present during all communications until the connection was officially broken in 1955.

Dr. Sprunger surmises that certain strict celestial rules or protocols govern the process by which an epochal revelation can be delivered. This is consistent with what the Papers themselves disclose about epochal revelations on page 1109. In this section the Papers also inform us that epochal revelation is distinct from autorevelation, or the personal revelations that are achieved in a human mind by a Thought Adjuster alone. Epochal revelations are "presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality." On page 1008 we are told that the Urantia Papers "differ from all previous revelations, for they are not the work of a single universe personality but a composite presentation by many beings." We can reasonably presume that the seemingly difficult process by which the initial materialization of the Papers was achieved, and the means by which they were edited by celestial beings, may have required the services of a human being's Thought Adjuster. It is possible that celestial protocol may have required a human Thought Adjuster to be present, but we cannot be certain. Of utmost concern to celestial personages in the process of presenting epochal revelation is evidently the ultimate welfare and protection of the mortal evolutionary beings of the planet. For this reason the process is made to be the safest and least intrusive possible.

We do not know how the later sessions were instigated by the Revelators, or what the actual procedures were for the subsequent contacts. It seems clear that the Revelators were directing the mortals. We do not know if the wife of the subject continued to be present during the later contacts.

In considering the process of epochal revelation, there are questions we cannot answer: Was it necessary for Dr. Lena to ask a question before the initial contact could be made through the sleeping subject? Why did it seem necessary to solicit deeply thought-out inquiries from the Forum members before addressing topics? Also, much speculation and apocrypha has developed around the method of materializing the Papers. In an ideal world, these questions would not arise, the message of the Papers alone should speak for their authenticity. This was the original hope of Dr. Sadler:

"There are only a few of us still living who were in touch with this phenomenon in the beginning, and when we die, the knowledge of it will die with us. Then the Book will exist as a great spiritual mystery, and no human will know the manner in which it came about."²⁵

The irony of this purported statement is that it was made just after Dr. Sadler had revealed a vast amount of information to two journalists (the Shermans) about the origin of the Urantia Papers. Human nature being what it is, a mass of misinformation and apocrypha about the Papers has emerged, especially in recent years. The risk is one of developing a cult around The Urantia Book itself, a virtual "religion" about the Book to the exclusion of its message and teachings. Perhaps the most unsavory idea that has come forward is that the Contact Commissioners had secret powers and special spiritual status. People love stories of this nature. In his various writings, Mark Kulieke seems to be of two minds about this. But in his second edition of Birth of a Revelation, he makes a definitive and important observation on page 11:

"Probably one factor or perspective that is often overlooked is the fact that not only Dr. Sadler, but all of the Contact Commission were not given [sic] to mystical or extra-sensory experiences. While they lived and witnessed some highly unusual occurrences spanning half a century, they did not actively solicit these experiences. They could never initiate the contact experiences nor do aught to enhance the likelihood of a contact. Indeed, they spent much of their time being dubious about the whole procedure. All of the impetus and control was in the hands of the superhumans. The Contact Commission were [sic] unable to cultivate anything unusual but were essentially passive recipients of this highly unusual project. They had their active roles, but their activities were human and ordinary, not mystical. And they remained skeptical of all things occult or unusual. They experienced a unique transaction of epochal revelation but did not interest themselves in many episodes of personal revelation (many of them also genuine or partly genuine) which continuously abound all around us."

"We are going through the book again"

Sometime in 1929, it appeared the project was nearing completion. But then the Forum was sent a new direct written message through the Contact Commission:

"With your increased understanding derived from reading and study of the material, you can now ask more intelligent questions. We are going to go through the book again."²⁶

So, circa 1929-1930, the group commenced a re-reading of the formidable manuscript.

---

Footnotes

^1. HISTORY OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT TWO - [Compiled by a Contact Commissioner, Undated] page 7. [See A History of The Urantia Movement (Two)]

^2. IBID., page 7.

^3. IBID., page 7.

^4. IBID., page 8.

^5. The PLAN FOR THE URANTIA BOOK REVELATION, by Carolyn B. Kendall, Paper distributed January 18, 1996, page 1. Ms. Kendall is the daughter of Forum member Clarence N. Bowman, and was employed as a receptionist at the age of 19 by Dr. Sadler, and worked from 1952 to 1954 and in 1957. She has held many offices in the Urantia Brotherhood. Her husband, Thomas A. Kendall was a trustee of Urantia Foundation 1963-1983, and its President 1973-1983. [The Plan for The Urantia Book Revelation]

^6. Meredith J. Sprunger, personal disclosure. He told me that Dr. Sadler disclosed this information to him.

^7. HOW TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE, by Harold Sherman, Fawcett, New York, 1976, pp. 66-67. [See "Pipeline to God," page 66 of "How to Know What to Believe]

^8. IBID., page 67. Sherman gives the number of pages of the manuscript as 472.

^9. IBID.

^10. IBID.

^11. THE HISTORICITY OF THE URANTIA BOOK by Meredith J. Sprunger, page 5. Also, Dr. Sprunger disclosed this in video interviews with the author, taped by Eric Cosh the CEO of Paradigm Productions,Phoenix, AZ. [See "Meredith Sprunger's Notes on the Origin of The Urantia Book" by Meredith J. Sprunger.]

^12. The PLAN FOR THE URANTIA BOOK REVELATION, by Carolyn B. Kendall, Paper distributed January 18, 1996, page 1. [The Plan for The Urantia Book Revelation]

^13. Sworn deposition of Helen Carlson, Chicago, June 29, 1994.

^14. HISTORY OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT TWO - [Compiled by a Contact Commissioner, Undated] page 9. The reference in the History: "after being interviewed by the officers" is not clear. The reference may be to the Contact Commission, since there is not any record of actual "officers." Clyde Bedell told me he was interviewed by Dr. Sadler. [See A History of The Urantia Movement (Two)]

^15. HISTORY OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT TWO - [Compiled by a Contact Commissioner, Undated] page 9. [See A History of The Urantia Movement (Two)]

^16. THE HISTORICITY OF THE URANTIA BOOK by Meredith J. Sprunger, page 5. [See "Meredith Sprunger's Notes on the Origin of The Urantia Book" by Meredith J. Sprunger.]

^17. Meredith Sprunger, telephone conversation with the author October 16, 1999.

^18. The PLAN FOR THE URANTIA BOOK REVELATION, by Carolyn B. Kendall, Paper distributed January 18, 1996, page 1. [The Plan for The Urantia Book Revelation]

^19. HISTORY OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT ONE, "by a Group of Urantian Pioneers, assisted by Members of the Contact Commission, 1960", page 6. [See "History of the Urantia Movement" (one)]

^20. THE HISTORICITY OF THE URANTIA BOOK by Meredith J. Sprunger, page 5. -also- BIRTH OF A REVELATION by Mark Kulieke, second edition, 1992, page 14. Also see Chapter Six of this book. [See "Meredith Sprunger's Notes on the Origin of The Urantia Book" by Meredith J. Sprunger.]

^21. HISTORY OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT TWO - [Compiled by a Contact Commissioner, Undated] page 24. Also see sworn affidavit of Meredith J. Sprunger, October 24, 1998, (pp 315 -320). Also, in a nearly decade-long litigation, Kristen Maaherra marshaled and documented compelling previous sworn testimony by Contact Commission members and Urantia Foundation officers to support this issue. This testimony established legally uncontested facts. See Chapter 7, Note 20 for additional information on this testimony. [See A History of The Urantia Movement (Two)]

^22. Meredith Sprunger has disclosed in taped interviews that, by some means, the Contact Commission was once allowed to "listen in" on a celebration of the Midwayers when they received permission to materialize Part IV, The Life and Teachings of Jesus. (See Chapter Six, page 115). Obviously the technique to do this transcended using the vocal mechanism of the sleeping subject. Bill Sadler, Jr. maintained that once the Papers started coming through there "was not much interaction with the `sleeping subject'." Fellowship website: (archive/history/h_timlin_2.htm, May 19,1999). However they may have been received, Christy evidently took notes of all administrative verbal contacts with the revelators after she joined the Contact Commission, and is probably the "stenographer" referred to in The Mind at Mischief.

^23. The Urantia Book Fellowship Website discloses in its timeline that: "Guidelines established by the revelatory commission" required that at least two contact commissioners were to be present when any verbal communications were taking place. David Kantor discloses he received this information from Christy and Carolyn Kendall. Meredith Sprunger told me that all contacts he knew about had at least two Commissioners present. The website also discloses that Contact Commissioners were required to "leave the room" if any physical objects were required to be moved or manipulated by the unseen Midwayers. It was divulged to the Commission that witnessing such effects would be too "psychologically disturbing" for the mortal observers. It should be noted that the establishment of these "guidelines" signaled the formal engagement of the unseen "Revelatory Commission." Up to this point all contacts had been with Midwayers and "student visitors." The actual transmission of revelatory material ended in May, 1942. The celestial Revelatory Commission was replaced in 1954 by a "Midwayer Commission." See Chapter Seven.

^24. HISTORY OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT TWO - [Compiled by a Contact Commissioner, Undated] page 21. [See A History of The Urantia Movement (Two)]

^25. HOW TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE, by Harold Sherman, Fawcett, New York, 1976, page 69. [See "Pipeline to God," page 69 of "How to Know What to Believe]

^26. BIRTH OF A REVELATION by Mark Kulieke, Second Edition, 1992, page 14.

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