To provide you with a better estimate of the value of Matthew's discoveries I shall now review eight additional human authors who were used by the Revelators to provide a foundation for presentations within The Urantia Papers. Three of those were reviewed by Martin Gardner. I shall excerpt from his review, with expansion on his commentaries. Three were presented by Matthew Block in his 1997 document. I shall repeat Matthew's work as he showed it, with minor comment. Two were drawn out by myself, based on Matthew's references.

After Pentecost

In a book by Rufus M. Jones, "A Preface to Christian Faith in a New Age," Macmillan Co., New York,1932, Matthew discovered close parallels with Paper 195 in The Urantia Papers. According to his statement:

Paper 195, "After Pentecost," sections 5-10. Every chapter of the book is used in the revelators' discussions of Christianity's struggle to awaken to its spiritual mission in the face of modern secularism and its own institutional shortcomings. Virtually every paragraph of Section 10, "The Future," is drawn consecutively from the last half of this book.

I did not personally verify the parallels, but Martin Gardner investigated. What follows is his summary with my comments.

I offer this example to show how Gardner failed utterly to grasp the methods of the Revelators, and their purpose in using human concepts on which to build a Revelation. His mind was befogged with his contempt for revelation, his disbelief in a real living God, and his inability to accept that celestial beings work intimately with us today. He was unable to perceive their purpose.

I do not take the brief clips from The Urantia Papers used by Gardner, which he selected to support his theory of human borrowing from human sources to write the text of the Papers, and which hid the techniques of the Revelators. I offer expanded quotations to show their methods more vividly.

The numbers with The Urantia Papers show the Paper No., the Section, and the paragraph number. The numbers in parentheses show the page of the human source.

The Urantia Papers	Rufus Jones
195:10:4 "The kingdom of God is within you" was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made . . .	The great saying: "The Kingdom of God is in you," has been called by a modern Hindu the greatest revelation that any person has ever made. (130)

195:10:10 If the Christian church would only dare to espouse the Master's program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure. p. 2085

If the Church is to recover its commanding place of influence in the life of the world today it must give a larger share of leadership to those who are young. The entire Church must be penetrated with a new spirit of adventure, and that spirit is peculiarly a characteristic of youth. (163-164)

What a magnificent call! Yet the Christian world languishes in darkness because it espouses Pauline theology instead of the teachings of Jesus.

You can see the great difference between the statements in The Urantia Papers, and in the thoughts of Jones. Here a challenge is put forth by the Revelators, while Jones expresses only a fond hope. Jones saw the organized institutions, the "Church," as the vehicle for salvaging the present social order. On the contrary, the Papers state that this social order is destined for destruction, pages 2081, 2082, 1086. Hence, the Papers offer this challenge to the youth of the world to espouse the Master's program, and not devote themselves to the institutionalized Church in the hope of  formulating social reorganization.

195:10:11 The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible unification of Christianity. The true church - the Jesus brotherhood - is invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by uniformity.

There has been a curious and yet widespread tendency manifested to confuse unity with uniformity. They are totally different . . . (143)

While Jones may have recognized, and discussed, the difference between unity and uniformity, he did not express the vision we find in The Urantia Papers. The true church - the Jesus brotherhood - is invisible and spiritual. It is not characterized by formal institutions, or legal organizations. Therefore, if Christianity is to become unified it must do so from the inside, from the spiritual experiences of its people, and not from some social effort. This great unification can come about only if there is such a transformation of experience, some spiritual awakening so dramatic, that the adherents of the visible organizations will abandon their sectarian desires and will far more readily seek the living Jesus. Then the world will experience unity, but not necessarily theological uniformity.

This great expectation is foreshadowed by statements in the Papers.

p.1732 (155:6:9) The religions of authority can only divide men and set them in conscientious array against each other: the religion of the spirit will progressively draw men together and cause them to become understandingly sympathetic with one another. The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience - uniformity of destiny making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration.

195:10:11 The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. And this brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an institutionalized social organization.

The heart of Christianity would seem to be one that approached as closely as possible to a living, growingorganism. (146)

 

Again we can see how the Revelators went beyond the expectations of Jones to offer a call to God's people. Only unfolding events will determine how we will respond to that call. Only a dramatic change in world conditions will bring about that living organism, devoid of an institutionalized "church."

195:10:17 The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and yell-balanced personality. There is great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to the security and enhancement of life eternal.

In speaking favorably, as has been done, of certain modern types of education, nothing should be said that would imply sympathy with any methods of education that neglect mental or moral discipline. (194)

 

We can easily see how Gardner, in his attempt to show that William Sadler created The Urantia Papers by borrowing wholesale from human authors, condemns the inspiring messages of the Revelation. The Revelators, in all cases, built upon human concepts to provide powerful exhortation and instruction. The spiritual vision of the Revelation far exceeds that expressed by Jones.

195:5:7 As you view the world, remember that the black patches of evil which you see are shown against a white background of ultimate good. You do not view merely white patches of good which show up miserably against a black background of evil.

The central faith of the chapter is . . . that in the ultimate nature of things the black squares are on a white background and not the white squares on a black one. (70)

As Gardner stated:

Many other phrases and ideas from Jones's book have found their way into the UB "The world needs more firsthand religion" (UB 2083). "First-hand religion" is the title of Jones's third chapter. The UB (2083) tells how Christianity has "dared to lower its ideals.- Jones (page 36) also bemoans the fact that Christianity has "lowered its ideals."

"The stream of modern Christianity drains many an ancient pagan swamp and many a barbarian morass; many olden cultural watersheds drain into this present-day cultural stream as well as the high Galilean tablelands which are supposed to be its exclusive source." -- So says the UB on page 2083. Compare this with Jones's A Preface to Christian Faith in a New Age (page 284): "Christian civilization is, therefore, by no means a river with a single source. On the contrary, it drains swamps and morasses and remote watersheds as well as that high Galilean tableland from which the original stream emerged."

Jones writes on his first page that "disciples of a crucified carpenter . . . conquered the Roman Empire." The UB (2086) says: "disciples of a crucified carpenter.... conquered the Roman World.

The interested person can examine the Revelation passages for their content and spiritual instruction.

Gardner's attempt to denigrate the Revelation speaks volumes for his lack of relationship with a real living God. Were these not noble truths to be preserved against loss in a deteriorating social order that no longer believes in God? Did the Revelation speak falsely? Why should such great teaching not be preserved for future, God-loving people? Gardner failed utterly to recognize the purpose behind the Revelators, and their design to support God's people in the grand reorganization of the world.

The Religion of Jesus

A similar failure by Gardner can be found in his presentation of the parallels with two books by Walter E. Bundy.

Two widely read books of the time, both by Walter E. Bundy, a professor of English Bible at DePauw University, had an enormous influence on the UB's final Paper 196. The books were The Religion of Jesus (BobbsMerrill, 1928) and Our Recovery of Jesus (same firm, 1929). Block estimates that about 95 percent of the Paper's preamble and first two sections derive from those two books. "The last sections differs in tone and content," Block adds, "and may be original with the midwayers."

In the twenties the phrase "religious experience" was a popular one with writers on religion. Bundy must have used it more than a thousand times. William James titled his classic work on religion The Varieties of Religious Experience. William Ernest Hocking called his major book on religion The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912). The phrase is used repeatedly in the Jesus Papers, especially in Paper 196.

 

The importance of religious experience, rather than an intellectualized theology, or a doctrine derived from narrow apostolic views, is emphasized time and again in The Urantia Papers.

98:7:4 As the original teachings of Jesus penetrated the Occident, they became Occidentalized, and as they became Occidentalized, they began to lose their potentially universal appeal to all races and kinds of men. Christianity, today, has become a religion well adapted to the social, economic, and political mores of the white races. It has long since ceased to be the religion of Jesus, although it still valiantly portrays a beautiful religion about Jesus to such individuals as sincerely seek to follow in the way of its teaching. It has glorified Jesus as the Christ, the Messianic anointed one from God, but has largely forgotten the Master's personal gospel: the Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of all men.

192:4:8 And so, under the vigorous leadership of Peter and ere the Master ascended to the Father, his well-meaning representatives began that subtle process of gradually and certainly changing the religion of Jesus into a new and modified form of religion about Jesus.

195:4:4 Christianity exhibits a history of having originated out of the unintended transformation of the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus. It further presents the history of having experienced Hellenization, paganization, secularization, institutionalization, intellectual deterioration, spiritual decadence, moral hibernation, threatened extinction, later rejuvenation, fragmentation, and more recent relative rehabilitation. Such a pedigree is indicative of inherent vitality and the possession of vast recuperative resources. And this same Christianity is now present in the civilized world of Occidental peoples and stands face to face with a struggle for existence which is even more ominous than those eventful crises which have characterized its past battles for dominance.

 

Such words certainly did not derive out of a Christian religionist. They portray a condemnation of Christianity as it now stands, but express an expectation that Christianity is the cocoon out of which will blossom forth a new invigorated and dynamic belief in a real, living Jesus. No longer will theologies about Jesus dominate this world.

195:9:9 The world needs more firsthand religion. Even Christianity - the best of the religions of the twentieth century - is not only a religion about Jesus, but it is so largely one which men experience secondhand. They take their religion wholly as handed down by their accepted religious teachers. What an awakening the world would experience if it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his life-giving teachings! Descriptive words of things beautiful cannot thrill like the sight thereof, neither can creedal words inspire men's souls like the experience of knowing the presence of God. But expectant faith will ever keep the hope-door of man's soul open for the entrance of the eternal spiritual realities of the divine values of the worlds beyond.

 

How could Gardner possibly assign such magnificent statements to the deluded plagiarisms of misshapen men?

But this is the way he presented his condemnation:

This distinction between religion about Jesus, and the religion of Jesus, is made over and over again in Bundy's two books. I will cite a few examples, keeping the italics of the original as I have done with UB quotes.

Page 2091: "You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus."

Page 2090: the UB recommends that "religion about Jesus" be replaced by the "living religion of Jesus."

Page 2089: "Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him, but rather to believe with him.

From The Religion of Jesus:

"[H]istorical Christianity has demanded first of all the sharing of a faith about Jesus rather than a sharing of Jesus' own personal faith." (253).

"Jesus did not demand that his followers believe in or on him, but that they believe with him" (264).

"Christianity from the moment of its birth was a religion about Jesus rather than the religion of Jesus" (277).

"A religion about Jesus may fit the pious patterns of the past.... but only the religion of Jesus can recommend and prove itself in the life and experience of modern men." (325).

"The hope of Christianity. . . is not a rigorous restriction of what may or may not be believed about Jesus, but is an unreserved release of all our powers to believe with him" (329).

"Jesus not only challenged his followers to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed (264). The UB's statement (2089) is extremely close in wording: "Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed."

"The common idea is that Jesus founded a religion--Christianity. But it is better history to say: Jesus became a religion" (277). The UB (2092) says it this way: "But the greatest mistake was made in that, while the human Jesus was recognized as having a religion, the divine Jesus (Christ) almost overnight became a religion." I see no improvement in the way the UB expands Bundy.

 

Of course Gardner would see no improvement on the way The Urantia Papers expanded on Bundy. His mind was so befogged with his condemnation he could not see any religious or spiritual value in the magnificent teachings founded on, and expanded from, human concepts

As he continues:

From Bundy's Our Recovery of Jesus:

"Christianity as a religion about Jesus has almost totally obscured Christian vision for the religion of Jesus" (2).

"Is a religion about Jesus, such as Christianity has always been, to furnish the body of our faith, or are we to turn to the religion of Jesus?" (7).

"He [Jesus] did not require that his disciples believe certain things about him, but that they believe with him.... It is not difficult to believe in Jesus, but to believe with him, to believe what and as he believed . . . is a religious task that lays hold on the deepest sources of human life" (10).

The UB (2092) has harsh words about Paul for having replaced the religion of Jesus with a religion about Jesus. This, too, is stressed by Bundy. In Our Recovery of Jesus he describes Paul's religion as a "different world," one "quite distinct from the religious experience of Jesus," and, "In the Christian experience of Paul the Christ of faith, not the Jesus of history, is the supreme religious authority" (32).

 

We should keep in mind that Paul was chosen by Jesus for his mission to the nations. We should not neglect that fact.

"The Apostle Paul experienced just such a sudden and spectacular conversion that eventful day on the Damascus road." Page 1099. This conversion came about because he was visited by Jesus, in glorious celestial light.

196:2:1 Some day a reformation in the Christian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadulterated religious teachings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus. In the enthusiasm of Pentecost, Peter unintentionally inaugurated a new religion, the religion of the risen and glorified Christ. The Apostle Paul later on transformed this new gospel into Christianity, a religion embodying his own theologic views and portraying his own personal experience with the Jesus of the Damascus road. The gospel of the kingdom is founded on the personal religious experience of the Jesus of Galilee; Christianity is founded almost exclusively on the personal religious experience of the Apostle Paul. Almost the whole of the New Testament is devoted, not to the portrayal of the significant and inspiring religious life of Jesus, but to a discussion of Paul's religious experience and to a portrayal of his personal religious convictions. The only notable exceptions to this statement, aside from certain parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of Hebrews and the Epistle of James. Even Peter, in his writing, only once reverted to the personal religious life of his Master. The New Testament is a superb Christian document, but it is only meagerly Jesusonian.

Gardner continues with his condemnation:

On page 2093 of the UB we read: "Jesus did not share Paul's pessimistic view of humankind . . . he viewed man positively, not negatively. He saw men as weak rather than wicked, more distraught than depraved."

Compare this with Bundy's words on pages 170-71 of Our Recovery of Jesus:

"He [Jesus] shared nothing of that Christian pessimism concerning humankind that has run like a strong stream from the thought of Paul down to the present.... Jesus' estimate of humankind is positive, not negative.... Jesus worked on the assumption that men are weak rather than

wicked. . . . Jesus found men distracted and distraught rather than depraved and doomed."

Many other phrases in Paper 196 come straight from Bundy. The very first sentence of The Religion of Jesus is "Jesus was God's Galilean." The UB (2088) calls Jesus "God's Galilean." Bundy writes (Our Recovery of Jesus, page 16): "He [Jesus] was one of them, a layman." The UB (2090-91): "The people heard him gladly because he was one of them, an unpretentious laymen.

The author of Paper 196 (UB 2089) writes: "Jesus most teachingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, 'Follow me.'" Here is how Bundy says the same thing (Our Recovery of Jesus, page 10): "Jesus had no creed . . . no confession that he required of his disciples. The one great command of Jesus was, 'Follow me.' "

On page 2089 of the UB are two paragraphs about how Jesus' faith in God was like that of a child trusting his or her parents. The sentences are derived from a 20-page section of Bundy's The Religion of Jesus, a section headed "The Child Mind" (218ff). The UB also calls the mind of Jesus a "child mind." Bundy writes: "A final feature in the child mind is a singular lack of pretense" (226). The UB says: "There was no hesitating pretense in his [Jesus] religious experience." Bundy stresses the child's sense of "wonder in the world," and how the "wonder-world" is part of all religious experience. The UB speaks of the child's response to the "wonder of the universe." Bundy stresses the child's "unreserved trust." The UB speaks of "the purity of a child's trust." Bundy stresses the child's "sense of security." The UB speaks of the child's "assurance of absolute personal security." Bundy emphasizes the child's "wholesome and sunny optimism." The UB speaks of the child's "trusting optimism."

 

Gardner serves as an excellent example of how an unbelieving mind will twist, distort, and destroy the precious words given to us from God, built upon the highest and most noble human concepts of the past, for the future growth of this world.

Only godless minds would engage in such rapacious spiritual destruction.

I shall now offer three other examples of the use of human sources, directly from Matthew's manuscript dated 1997, with my commentary.

God and Ourselves

The first is from Edwin Lewis, God and Ourselves; a plea for the reality, adequacy and availability of God, Cincinnati, The Abingdon Press, 1931.

The Library of Congress lists twelve books by Lewis, from 1927 to 1953, all on religious themes: The Biblical Faith and Christian Freedom, A Manual of Christian Beliefs, A Philosophy of the Christian Revelation, and so on. You can see the concentration of Lewis on his concerns about Christianity, rather than on a spiritual brotherhood.

The parallels are all from Paper 3, Section 5, pages 50-52 of The Urantia Papers. The corresponding parallels in Lewis are from Chapter 3, The Inevitabilites of Life, beginning on page (73).

Matthew's numbers from The Urantia Papers refer to the Paper Number, the Section in that Paper, and the paragraph number in that Section. The numbers in parentheses in the opposing column are the page numbers from Lewis, as reported by Matthew.

3:5.5 The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God.  All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following: 3:5.6 1. Is courage -- strength of character -desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.  3:5.7 2. Is altruism - service of one's fellows - desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality. 3:5.8 3. Is hope -- the grandeur of trust desirable?  Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties. 3:5.9 4. Is faith -- the supreme assertion of human thought -- desirable?  Then must the mind of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe. 3:5.10 5. Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable?  Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.

There is no necessary antagonism between the conditions of life and the Sovereign Goodness of God (74). Life is full of inevitabilities . . .(83). Is courage desirable? (93). Then man must encounter hardship (93). Is service of one's kind desirable? (93). Then there must be inequalities in the human lot (93). Is hope desirable? (93). Then life must be beset by uncertainties (93). Is faith desirable? (93). Then the mind must know less than it is able to believe (93). Is truth desirable? (93). Then one must be able to lie, since truth is possible only in the same conditions in which a lie is possible; just as heroism is possible only where one could be a coward, or virtue only where one could be vicious, or purity only where one could be impure (93).

 

This is a numbered list, as in the Morontia Mota list, or in the structured "Absolute Perfection" list.

Again note the difference between the human truth, and the divine transformation of that truth.

"universal sovereignty of God" vs. "Sovereign Goodness of God"
"courage - strength of character" vs. "courage"
"grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments" vs. "encounter hardship"
"altruism - service of one's fellows" vs. "service of one's kind"
"hope -- the grandeur of trust" vs. "hope"
"insecurities and recurrent uncertainties" vs. "uncertainties"
"faith -- the supreme assertion of human thought" vs. "faith"
"the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads" vs. "truth"
"where error is present and falsehood always possible" vs. "one must be able to lie"

(Note that Lewis intended potential to falsehood in the phrase "one must be able to.")

The Urantia Papers then present the following list, but offer no parallels to Lewis, as reported by Matthew. Apparently Lewis did not reach to these conceptual heights. The Revelators saw the benefit of adding these concepts for our further enlightenment.

3:5.11 6. Is idealism - the approaching concept of the divine - desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.

3:5.12 7. Is loyalty - devotion to highest duty - desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.

3:5.13 8. Is unselfishness - the spirit of self-forgetfulness - desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.

3:5.14 9. Is pleasure - the satisfaction of happiness - desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.

The Papers then pick up with other parallels to Lewis.

(In the following tabulations the bold face indicates sections noted by  Matthew as revelatory material not devised by human mind.)

3:5.15 Throughout the universe, every unit is regarded as a part of the whole. Survival of the part is dependent on co-operation with the plan and purpose of the whole, the wholehearted desire and perfect willingness to do the Father's divine will. The only evolutionary world without error (the possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free intelligence. In the Havona universe there are a billion perfect worlds with their perfect inhabitants, but evolving, man must be fallible if he is to be free. Free and inexperienced intelligence cannot possibly at first be uniformly wise. The possibility of mistaken judgment (evil) becomes sin only when the human will consciously endorses and knowingly embraces a deliberate immoral judgment. 3:5.16 The full appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness is inherent in the perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the Havona worlds do not require the potential of relative value levels as a choice stimulus; such perfect beings are able to identify and choose the good in the absence of all contrastive and thought-compelling moral situations. But all such perfect beings are, in more! nature and spiritual status, what they are by virtue of the fact of existence. They have experientially earned advancement only within their inherent status. Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by his own faith and hope. Everything divine which the human mind grasps and the human soul acquires is an experiential attainment; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession in contrast to the inherent goodness and righteousness of the inerrant personalities of Havona.

In a system, the parts are as they are and where they are because of the requirements of the whole (96). This surrender to the spins and needs of the whole is the price the part must pay for its own existence (96). The only world in which there could be no error would be a world in which there was no free intelligence (112). The purpose requires that men shall be fallible because it requires that they shall be free(ll3). Intelligence that is free and inexperienced and under necessity of learning is bound to go astray (113). The possibility of moral evil necessarily goes with human life: sin is the responsible actualizing of this possibility (106). As a matter of theory, it might be admitted...that God could have created a universe in which there were no conflicts, and that in this perfect setting he could have placed intelligent beings whose minds would have functioned automatically and infallibly. Perhaps "angels" are such beings. But if they are, what man who appreciates the meaning of his own manhood would want to be an angel? It revere better to be able to make mistakes and to make them than not to make them because we were not able (113)

 

You can see how the Revelators expanded on the concepts offered by Lewis. The bold face shows divine revelation inserted into the text borrowed from human sources.

The Papers follow this with further expansion of the concept of perfect beings who may possess attributes of character but who are deprived of earning growth through evolutionary experience.

Clearly, the development of these concepts reaches far beyond the human limits of Lewis, or the rest of us.

True Religion

I shall now show the parallels Matthew found in Paper 101, Section 1, with a work by John Baille, The Interpretation of religion: An Introductory Study of Theological Principles, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928.

This book was revised and republished by Scribner in 1977. The later editon includes bibliographical references and index. The Library of Congress lists thirty-two books by Baillie including, The Belief in Progress, 1951, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought, 1956, and so on.

Bold face indicates revelatory insertion into the sequence of thought.

101:1.2 The Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism through which to gain Self-expression; there is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or expression of religious emotions. These experiences are made available through the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind.  And therein lies one explanation of the Adjuster's difficulty in engaging in direct communication with the material mind of its constant indwelling. 101:1.3 The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. "Without holiness no man may see the Lord." All such inner and spiritual communion is termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God. 101:1.4 Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. 102:7.10 Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences.

[The best mystics] have indeed made it abundantly clear that there is here no question of a special sense or a special faculty of perception, or of any other activity of the soul than its own intelligence (227). The central contention for which mysticism stands is certainly that of the direct and intimate nature of God's presence to our souls, but it has also been of the very essence of its case that it is not to our senses that He is thus present but to our thoughts. That in our thoughts we can get closer to God than we can get to the things of sense by seeing and touching and tasting them ... (227). It is all summed up in Plato's own saying that God is indeed visible, but visible to the mind alone . . . (227) . . . but only to the eyes of the pure mind to the eyes, as eve might put it, of the good conscience (228) . . . "Without holiness no man may see the Lord." . . . This state of the case has been very frankly recognized by a number of recent writers who have nevertheless continue to use the language of sense-perception for the delineation of religious insight (229). Perhaps, indeed, the main principle to be grasped in this whole matter is that religion lives not by sight but by insight. A man is religious not in so far as he stumbles on certain new facts but in so far as he discovers a new meaning in facts that are already known to us all (232). Yes! As to God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, we have the right to be certain (42).

The last citation is from Edwin Lewis, not Baille, but introduced into the list of Paper 102.

I must again express my amazement at Matthew's uncanny ability to discover these parallels.

You can note for yourself the nature of the parallels, and the methods employed by the Revelators to frame and restate the human concepts to such superb ideals.

Teaching About Prayer and Worship

Another example offered by Matthew is found in a book by William Ernest Hocking, The Meaning of God in Human Experience; A Philosophic Study of Religion, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1912. Hocking was another prolific writer. The Library of Congress lists thirty-seven books under his authorship, including Man and the State, Living Religions and a World Faith, and so on. This man was so popular that many of his works were reprinted posthumously.

The italics indicate word or phrase parallels.

143:7.1 At the evening conferences on Mount Gerizim, Jesus taught many great truths, and in particular he laid emphasis on the following:  143:7.2 True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator; organized religion is man's attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists. 143:7.3 Worship -- contemplation of the spiritual -- must alternate with service, contact with material reality. Work should alternate with play; religion should be balanced by humor. Profound philosophy should be relieved by rhythmic poetry. The strain of living -- the time tension of personality - should be relaxed by the restfulness of worship. The feelings of insecurity arising from the fear of personality isolation in the universe should be antidoted by the faith contemplation of the Father and by the attempted realization of the Supreme.

We customarily think of the religious institution as a way of arranging for the social side of worship(529). If worship has any vital function to perform, it must alternate with other things, the necessity of rhythm lies somehow in the nature of my practical attention (395).

 

143:7.4 Prayer is designed to make man less thinking but more realizing; it is not designed to increase knowledge but rather to expand insight. 143:7.5 Worship is intended to anticipate the better life ahead and then to reflect these new spiritual significance back onto the life which now is.

Mystic insight has been compared by William James with our occasional experiences of realizing, more or less suddenly, the meaning of words, sayings, points of view, which may have been familiar and empty possessions for a long time (428) . . . in proportion as our prayer is honest, we shall find ourselves less thinking, and more seeing; and we can turn again to meet experience with so much better poise and understanding (439). But the meaning of the mystic experience is prophetic. It anticipates an attainment still to be won; it can be held only by proceeding to that winning. Worship is false unless it is sanctioned in turn by the life that follows it (439).

 

Prayer is spiritually sustaining but worship is divinely creative. 143:7.6 Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service to the many. Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul's detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation. 143:7.7 Prayer is self-reminding -- sublime thinking; worship is self-forgetting -superthinking. Worship is effortless attention, true and ideal soul rest, a form of restful spiritual exertion. 143:7;8 Worship is the act of a part identifying itself with the Whole; the finite with the Infinite; the son with the Father; time in the act of striking step with eternity. Worship is the act of the son's personal communion with the divine Father the assumption of refreshing, creative fraternal and romantic attitudes by the human 143:7.9 Although the apostles grasped only a few of his teachings at the camp, other worlds did, and other generations on earth will.

The second sanction of worship is, that the worshiper does not merely sustain but creates (440). The mystic has reverted to the One and now returns to the many [i.e. the multiplicity of things] (440). The effort of worship measures the soul's power of detachment. And my power of detachment measures the whole of my freedom, the whole of my possibility of happiness the whole of mv possible originality, the whole depth and reach of my morality and of my human contribution (365). A great part of what we commonly know as prayer is in effect, just such a process of self-reminding (376). The contrast between mystic experience and 'life' is at the same time a contrast between effortless attention and effortful attention (413). All good things do doubtless belong together; but each good thing we recognize, is to be pursued separately. The difficulty lies in inferring from the parts to the whole . . . (405). Changing conceptions admit some union of the infinite with the finite . . . (376). . . . our responsible temper finds nothing in the present that satisfies it. It is alienated from its present moment: it is romantic, in the sense that it seeks its good elsewhere, far away, in a place very different from what it finds in experience (416).

Origin and Evolution of Religion

I shall now provide two other examples, both of which derive from The Origin and Evolution of Religion, E. Washburn Hopkins, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1923.

The first set comes from Chapter II, The Worship of Stones, Hills, Trees, and Plants. The parallels may be found in Paper 85, The Origins of Worship.

I determined these passages for myself, using Matthew's references. I did not attempt an exhaustive evaluation; merely an indication of how the concepts were drawn out.

The parallels are in sequential order by page, (except for rearrangement of the sentences or phrases on a page, shown in parenthesis), with a statement in The Urantia Papers coming from a corresponding remark in Origins, a following second statement from a following remark, and so on. The Revelators greatly condensed the presentation, often extracting isolated sentences from Hopkin's lengthy text sufficient to illustrate their teachings.

The Urantia Papers

Origin and Evolution of Religion

85:0:4 At one time or another mortal man has worshiped everything on the face of the earth, including himself. He has also worshiped about everything imaginable in the sky and beneath the surface of the earth. Primitive man feared all manifestations of power; he worshiped every natural phenomenon he could not comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatly impressed the expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life are still termed "acts of God" and "mysterious dispensations of Providence."

(13) Man has worshipped everything on earth, including himself . . . He has worshipped everything he could think of beneath the earth, Finally, he has worshipped everything between earth and heaven . . . the sky itself . . . (Yet with all this bewildering jumble to his discredit, man to his credit has never really worshipped anything save what he imagined behind these phenomena the thing he sought and feared, power.) (. . . stones, hills, flowers, trees, streams, wells, ocean, animals . . . metals, caves, serpents, and under-world ghosts . . . and everything in the heavens above, mist, wind, cloud, rainbow, stars, moon, sun . . .) though only in part has he worshipped the spirits of all these objects.

85:1:1 1. WORSHIP OF STONES AND HILLS The first object to be worshiped by evolving man was a stone. Today the Kateri people of southern India still worship a stone, as do numerous tribes in northern India. Jacob slept on a stone because he venerated it; he even anointed it. Rachel concealed a number of sacred stones in her tent.

(14) The worship of stones and hills: Stone-worship may be addressed to a mere stone, a fetish, a totem, an idol, or a symbol . . . At the present day the inhabitants of Kateri in South India worship a stone, which if neglected will turn into a wild ox. and in Northern India not only the wild tribes but recognized castes of civilized society worship stones which they believe to be alive and possessed of volition . . . Among the Semites, the Canaanites especially, and, among the Aryans, the Kelts worshipped and anointed stones.  Similarly, Jacob after using a stone as a pillow anointed it, and Rachel concealed stones in the tent, probably "witness stones" (Gen. 28:11-22; 31:34).

 

85:1:2 Stones first impressed early man as being out of the ordinary because of the manner in which they would so suddenly appear on the surface of a cultivated field or pasture. Men failed to take into account either erosion or the results of the overturning of soil. Stones also greatly impressed early peoples because of their frequent resemblance to animals. The attention of civilized man is arrested by numerous stone formations in the mountains which so much resemble the faces of animals and even men. But the most profound influence was exerted by meteoric stones which primitive humans beheld hurtling through the atmosphere in flaming grandeur. The shooting star was awesome to early man, and he easily believed that such blazing streaks marked the passage of a spirit on its way to earth. No wonder men were led to worship such phenomena, especially when they subsequently discovered the meteors. And this led to greater reverence for all other stones. In Bengal many worship a meteor which fell to earth in A. D. 1880.

(14-15) The notion that stones are the children of earth interchanges with the belief that they are the bones of earth, both views presupposing the assumption that earth is an organic whole and stones are part of the earth-mother . . . Different in origin are the betyls or heavenly stones, whose divinity derived from their origin. A blazing stone striking the earth would always inspire fear and subsequent religious regard or worship, as in the case of many betyls (probably the Kaaba stone at Mecca is of this sort).

 

85:1:3 All ancient clans and tribes had their sacred stones, and most modern peoples manifest a degree of veneration for certain types of stones-their jewels. A group of five stones was reverenced in India; in Greece it was a cluster of thirty; among the red men it was usually a circle of stones. The Romans always threw a stone into the air when invoking Jupiter. In India even to this day a stone can be used as a witness. In some regions a stone may be employed as a talisman of the law, and by its prestige an offender can be haled into court. But simple mortals do not always identify Deity with an object of reverent ceremony. Such fetishes are many times mere symbols of the real object of worship.

(16-17) Stone-worship is not racial nor is it merely primitive in time. At this hour is worshipped in Bengal a stone which fell in 1880; it is at present " the miraculous god" . . . A group of five stones in India (thirty in Greece) is sometimes found as a religious unit similar to the stone circles of Europe and to the groups of stones set by the Amerinds, though not always numbered or placed precisely in a circle . . . The ceremony of throwing a stone among the Romans involved the invocation of Jupiter, and it has thence been supposed that Jupiter himself was originally a stone . . . Here may be mentioned the common practice in India of taking up a stone as a witness. If one wishes to hale an offender to court one seizes a stone and calls it an officer . . .

85:1:5  Hill worship followed stone worship, and the first hills to be venerated were large stone formations. It presently became the custom to believe that the gods inhabited the mountains, so that high elevations of land were worshiped for this additional reason. As time passed, certain mountains were associated with certain gods and therefore became holy. The ignorant and superstitious aborigines believed that caves led to the underworld, with its evil spirits and demons, in contrast with the mountains, which were identified with the later evolving concepts of good spirits and deities.

(19) The lone stone to the villager is a guardian god. And what the rock is to the villager the hill is to the larger community. It is a being, alive and capable of aiding or injuring. It was not at first to the spirits of the hills that Chinese offered sacrifice but to the hills themselves as powers. There is, so to speak, only a quantitative difference between stone and hill. Only the higher intelligence regards the holy hill as holy because a spirit lives in it or gives oracles there . . .

From this point The Urantia Papers do not follow the sequence of Hopkins' presentation.

85:2 Worship of Plants and Trees  Plants were first feared and then worshiped because of the intoxicating liquors which were derived therefrom. Primitive man believed that intoxication rendered one divine. There was supposed to be something unusual and sacred about such an experience. Even in modern times alcohol is known as "spirits." Early man looked upon sprouting grain with dread and superstitious awe. The Apostle Paul was not the first to draw profound spiritual lessons from, and predicate religious beliefs on, the sprouting grain. The cults of tree worship are among the oldest religious groups. All early marriages were held under the trees, and when women desired children, they would sometimes be found out in the forest affectionately embracing a sturdy oak. Many plants and trees were venerated because of their real or fancied medicinal powers. The savage believed that all chemical effects were due to the direct activity of supernatural forces. Ideas about tree spirits varied greatly among different tribes and races. Some trees were indwelt by kindly spirits; others harbored the deceptive and cruel. The Finns believed that most trees were occupied by kind spirits. The Swiss long mistrusted the trees, believing they contained tricky spirits. The inhabitants of India and eastern Russia regard the tree spirits as being cruel. The Patagonians still worship trees, as did the early Semites. Long after the Hebrews ceased tree worship, they continued to venerate their various deities in the groves. Except in China, there once existed a universal cult of the tree of life.

(22ff) - Worship of Trees and Plants Plants or grains yielding an intoxicant have generally been deified, as in India, Persia, and Mexico. The Soma, or Hom, plant, which produces intoxication, is thus regarded as a divine power. (27) To our religious sense the idea of resurrection is associated with St. Paul's appeal to the analogous resurrection of grain. All around the Mediterranean and far north in Central Europe this resurrection of plant life had been made the centre of religious ritual long before Paul's day. (30) The cult of trees is one of the oldest, as it is one of the most widely extender forms of worship. (22) In India, tree-marriages are common . . . Thus, in the Hindu epic, a woman who wants children embraces a tree. (23) But the tree per se is also beneficent or maleficent and is treated as such. It gives a welcome shade or fruit or it is poisonous or lacerates. (22) The same epic treats the trees as sentient beings having volition, though elsewhere they are regarded not as themselves holy beings but as abodes of spirits. (23) Whether wood-spirits are kind or not depends on circumstances. The Finns regard them as gentle; they call the forest-spirit "gentle god of the wood" and give him the "honey goddess" as wife. The Amerinds' spirit was ferocious, like themselves, a cruel demon, and the Russian forest deity was brutal and misleading, though this type appears also in Sweden and Japan, while in Switzerland the wood-spirits are tricky rather than cruel, stealing milk and children, yet recovering for man the cow he has lost. (25)

At this point direct parallels break down, although some of the thoughts in the Revelation were obviously based on the discussions by Hopkins.

I also found that the parallels between The Urantia Papers on Growth of the Trinity Concept and the triad and trinity discussions by Hopkins in his chapters on The Triad and The Hindu Trinity were slim. Following is what I was able to determine, not privy to Matthew's discoveries.

104:0:1 THE Trinity concept of revealed religion must not be confused with the triad beliefs of evolutionary religions. The ideas of triads arose from suggestive relationships but chiefly because of the three joints of the fingers, because three legs were the fewest which could stabilize a stool, because three support points could keep up a tent; furthermore, primitive man, for a long time, could not count beyond three. 104:0:2 Aside from certain natural couplets, such as past and present, day and night, hot and cold, and male and female, man generally tends to think in triads: yesterday, today, and tomorrow; sunrise, noon, and sunset; father, mother, and child. Three cheers are given the victor. The dead are buried on the third day, and the ghost is placated by three ablutions of water. 104:0:3 Triad deities all had a natural origin and have appeared at one time or another among most of the intelligent peoples of Urantia. Sometimes the concept of an evolutionary triad has become mixed with that of a revealed Trinity; in these instances it is often impossible to distinguish one from the other.

Failure to recognize the distinction between a triadic roup of heterogeneous gods and a real trinity has vitiated the work of various scholars. (295)  Why Three should have become a "holy number" has long been the subject of speculation. One modern theory suggests that, as man has three finger-joints, his reckoning arose from his fingers and three became the base order, hence holy. Another contends that three is the base all rhythmic movements and man is a rhythmical creature. Still another theory is that, as some savages cannot count beyond two, three became synonymous with the all or perfection. (291) But is it not quite as natural to think in pairs, as savages are apt to do, past and present, here and elsewhere, day and night, sun and moon, earth and sky, strength and weakness, male and female? (291) Now it is true that we think in triads, because three are natural divisions, yesterday, today, and tomorrow; childhood, youth, and age; here, above, below; sunrise, noon sunset; sun, moon, stars; earth, air, sky; father, mother, child; three is the whole, the all. (291) It is clear from such grouping that the triad is not originally trinitarian and that the triad itself is a more or less fortuitous group of high gods loosely connected in contrast with other ritual groups of three . . . (303)

 

Although the Revelators may have followed the general sequence of Hopkins' presentation, as Matthew indicated, these parallels show a breakdown in direct wording from the human document to the divine statement.

Therefore, I did not attempt to further adduce parallels from Hopkins chapters on "The Buddhist Trinity," and "The Christian Trinity." These are very brief statements in the Papers, and do not add to our perception of how the Revelators used human sources. My purpose here was not to repeat the work of Matthew, but merely to provide sufficient evidence for the reader to recognize the manner in which the Revelators used human concepts as the basis of their presentations.

I shall now go on to discuss some of the factors which affect our assessment of Matthew's work. But first I shall offer Matthew's public statements about his work.

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