Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study 90 "Child of God and Child of Man"
Compiled 8/17/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 5 of many]
PAPER 66 THE PLANETARY PRINCE OF EARTH
6. THE PRINCE'S REIGN
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
66:6.7 When Christian missionaries go into the heart of Africa, where sons and daughters are supposed to remain under the control and direction of their parents throughout the lifetime of the parents, they only bring about confusion and the breakdown of all authority when they seek, in a single generation, to supplant this practice by teaching that these children should be free from all parental restraint after they have attained the age of twenty-one.
7. LIFE IN DALAMATIA
66:7.4 The definite order of family life and the living of one family together in one residence of comparatively settled location date from these times of Dalamatia and were chiefly due to the example and teachings of the one hundred and their pupils. The home as a social unit never became a success until the supermen and superwomen of Dalamatia led mankind to love and plan for their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s children. Savage man loves his child, but civilized man loves also his grandchild.
PAPER 68 THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
0. Introduction
68:0.2 Civilization is a racial acquirement; it is not biologically inherent; hence must all children be reared in an environment of culture, while each succeeding generation of youth must receive anew its education. The superior qualities of civilization — scientific, philosophic, and religious — are not transmitted from one generation to another by direct inheritance. These cultural achievements are preserved only by the enlightened conservation of social inheritance.
2. FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESSION
68:2.8 Almost everything of lasting value in civilization has its roots in the family. The family was the first successful peace group, the man and woman learning how to adjust their antagonisms while at the same time teaching the pursuits of peace to their children.
6. EVOLUTION OF CULTURE
68:6.1 Man is a creature of the soil, a child of nature; no matter how earnestly he may try to escape from the land, in the last reckoning he is certain to fail. “Dust you are and to dust shall you return” is literally true of all mankind. The basic struggle of man was, and is, and ever shall be, for land. The first social associations of primitive human beings were for the purpose of winning these land struggles. The land-man ratio underlies all social civilization. [Less humans on more land is good; more humans on less land is bad. There are many suitable planets that can be colonized by us when we advance more in safe, much faster space travel.]
68:6.9 Many races learned the technique of abortion, and this practice became very common after the establishment of the taboo on childbirth among the unmarried. It was long the custom for a maiden to kill her offspring, but among more civilized groups these illegitimate children became the wards of the girl’s mother. Many primitive clans were virtually exterminated by the practice of both abortion and infanticide. But regardless of the dictates of the mores, very few children were ever destroyed after having once been suckled — maternal affection is too strong. [The crisis now of social security fast becoming bankrupt is mainly caused by excessive birth control and the terrible murder of living children in the womb by premeditated abortions !]
68:6.10 Even in the twentieth [and now 21st] century there persist remnants of these primitive population controls. There is a tribe in Australia whose mothers refuse to rear more than two or three children. Not long since, one cannibalistic tribe ate every fifth child born. In Madagascar some tribes still destroy all children born on certain unlucky days, resulting in the death of about twenty-five per cent of all babies.
PAPER 69 PRIMITIVE HUMAN INSTITUTIONS
3. THE SPECIALIZATION OF LABOR
69:3.2 1. Specialization based on sex. Woman’s work was derived from the selective presence of the child; women naturally love babies more than men do. Thus woman became the routine worker, while man became the hunter and fighter, engaging in accentuated periods of work and rest.
PAPER 70 THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT
1. THE GENESIS OF WAR
70:1.1 War is the natural state and heritage of evolving man; peace is the social yardstick measuring civilization’s advancement. Before the partial socialization of the advancing races man was exceedingly individualistic, extremely suspicious, and unbelievably quarrelsome. Violence is the law of nature, hostility the automatic reaction of the children of nature, while war is but these same activities carried on collectively. And wherever and whenever the fabric of civilization becomes stressed by the complications of society’s advancement, there is always an immediate and ruinous reversion to these early methods of violent adjustment of the irritations of human interassociations.
70:1.3 Andon taught his children to settle disputes by each beating a tree with a stick, meanwhile cursing the tree; the one whose stick broke first was the victor. The later Andonites used to settle disputes by holding a public show at which the disputants made fun of and ridiculed each other, while the audience decided the winner by its applause. [Now we have "celebrity roasts" and too many sarcastic comics.]
3. EARLY HUMAN ASSOCIATIONS
70:3.1 In the most primitive society the horde [crowd] is everything; even children are its common property. The evolving family displaced the horde in child rearing, while the emerging clans and tribes took its place as the social unit.
7. PRIMITIVE CLUBS AND SECRET SOCIETIES
70:7.8 Primitive people very early taught their adolescent youths sex control. It became the custom to take boys away from parents from puberty to marriage, their education and training being intrusted to the men’s secret societies. And one of the chief functions of these clubs was to keep control of adolescent young men, thus preventing illegitimate children. [Today, the rapid breakdown of the nuclear family, and less interest in raising many children, will soon destroy nations.]
PAPER 71 DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE
3. THE IDEALS OF STATEHOOD
71:3.12 In advanced states, political service is esteemed as the highest devotion of the citizenry. The greatest ambition of the wisest and noblest of citizens is to gain civil recognition, to be elected or appointed to some position of governmental trust, and such governments confer their highest honors of recognition for service upon their civil and social servants. Honors are next bestowed in the order named upon philosophers, educators, scientists, industrialists, and militarists. Parents are duly rewarded by the excellency of their children, and purely religious leaders, being ambassadors of a spiritual kingdom, receive their real rewards in another world.
PAPER 72 GOVERNMENT ON A NEIGHBORING PLANET
3. THE HOME LIFE
[The conditions on this planet are very similar to the Americas and much of Western civilization on Earth; so this revelation should help us to get through a serious moral and social decay crisis now on Earth.]
72:3.2 The home life of this people has greatly improved during the last century. Attendance of parents, both fathers and mothers, at the parental schools of child culture is compulsory. Even the agriculturists who reside in small country settlements carry on this work by correspondence, going to the near-by centers for oral instruction once in ten days — every two weeks, for they maintain a five-day week.
72:3.3 The average number of children in each family is five, and they are under the full control of their parents or, in case of the demise of one or both, under that of the guardians designated by the parental courts. It is considered a great honor for any family to be awarded the guardianship of a full orphan. Competitive examinations are held among parents, and the orphan is awarded to the home of those displaying the best parental qualifications. [No single-parent families, and certainly no "gay families".]
72:3.4 These people regard the home as the basic institution of their civilization. It is expected that the most valuable part of a child’s education and character training will be secured from his parents and at home, and fathers devote almost as much attention to child culture as do mothers.
72:3.6 Until twenty years ago [about year A.D. 1915 here; as this Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth came down to Earth around A.D. 1935] the spiritual teachers (comparable to Earth pastors), who visit each family periodically to examine the children to ascertain if they have been properly instructed by their parents, were under governmental supervision. These spiritual advisers and examiners are now under the direction of the newly created Foundation of Spiritual Progress, an institution supported by voluntary contributions. Possibly this institution may not further evolve until after the arrival of a Paradise Magisterial Son.
72:3.7 Children remain legally subject to their parents until they are fifteen, when the first initiation into civic responsibility is held. Thereafter, every five years for five successive periods similar public exercises are held for such age groups at which their obligations to parents are lessened, [at age 40 years !] while new civic and social responsibilities to the state are assumed. Suffrage is conferred at twenty, the right to marry without parental consent is not bestowed until twenty-five, and children must leave home on reaching the age of thirty. [Adopting these marriage, home and family policies would greatly stabilize our collapsing society ! Is it too late? We will soon see.]
4. THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
72:4.5 The school government is a replica of the national government with its three correlated branches, the teaching staff functioning as the third or advisory legislative division. The chief object of education on this continent is to make every pupil a self-supporting citizen.
72:4.6 Every child graduating from the precollege school system at eighteen is a skilled artisan. Then begins the study of books and the pursuit of special knowledge, either in the adult schools or in the colleges. When a brilliant student completes his work ahead of schedule, he is granted an award of time and means wherewith he may execute some pet project of his own devising. The entire educational system is designed to adequately train the individual. [Eventually the main goal of all education will be to develop all humans to have a more well-balanced personality, integrating the best in scientific facts, philosophical meanings and spiritual Values !]
5. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
72:5.2 Social antagonisms are lessening, and good will is growing apace. No grave economic problems have arisen out of the abolition of slavery (over one hundred years ago) since this adjustment was effected gradually by the liberation of two per cent each year. Those slaves who satisfactorily passed mental, moral, and physical tests were granted citizenship; many of these superior slaves were war captives or children of such captives. Some fifty years ago they deported the last of their inferior slaves, and still more recently they are addressing themselves to the task of reducing the numbers of their degenerate and vicious classes. [Not by murdering all of them, more likely voluntary and some mandatory sterilizations.]
6. OLD-AGE INSURANCE
72:6.1 This nation is making a determined effort to replace the self-respect-destroying type of charity by dignified government-insurance guarantees of security in old age. This nation provides every child an education and every man a job; therefore can it successfully carry out such an insurance scheme for the protection of the infirm and aged.
PAPER 74 ADAM AND EVE
6. HOME LIFE OF ADAM AND EVE
74:6.7 The Adamic children attended their own schools until they were sixteen, the younger being taught by the elder. The little folks changed activities every thirty minutes, the older every hour. And it was certainly a new sight on Earth to observe these children of Adam and Eve at play, joyous and exhilarating activity just for the sheer fun of it. The play and humor of the present-day races are largely derived from the Adamic stock. [The heaven-sent violet race to biologically uplift all mankind.] The Adamites all had a great appreciation of music as well as a keen sense of humor.
7. LIFE IN THE GARDEN
74:7.23 Adam taught his contemporaries all they could comprehend, but that was not very much, comparatively speaking. [Ha ha ! Humans start out being born at the lowest level of all the levels of the Sons of God. We will always ascend in status to Paradise; the higher-level Sons have to go down to minister to us, and some even go all the way down to incarnate as us ! Yes, the first shall often be as the last; so that the last shall also be as the first !] Nevertheless, the more intelligent of the races of Earth looked forward eagerly to the time when they would be permitted to intermarry with the superior children of the violet race. And what a different world Earth would have become if this great plan of uplifting the races had been carried out! Even as it was, tremendous gains resulted from the small amount of the blood of this imported race which the evolutionary peoples incidentally secured. [That made "modern man"more superior than primitive man, about 37,000 years ago - on. However, Adam and Eve were deceived to become impatient by Satan and Caligastia; and they only had about `1000 -1500 pure violet race super-children instead of God's plan to have one million violet (Adamic) race children go out and mate with selected Nodite humans in that area ! I think the violet race genes are dominant; so humans will slowly continue to improve to live here 300-plus years, fully disease free, and extremely more intelligent, morally wise and Spirit-led ! Another divine visitation could come to further accelerate human evolution !]
PAPER 82 THE EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE
0. Introduction
82:0.2 While religious, social, and educational institutions are all essential to the survival of cultural civilization, the family is the master civilizer. A child learns most of the essentials of life from his family and the neighbors.
3. EARLY MARRIAGE MORES
82:3.3 The mores, when respected, have ample power to restrain and control the sex urge, as has been shown among all races. Marriage standards have always been a true indicator of the current power of the mores and the functional integrity of the civil government. But the early sex and mating mores were a mass of inconsistent and crude regulations. Parents, children, relatives, and society all had conflicting interests in the marriage regulations. But in spite of all this, those races which exalted and practiced marriage naturally evolved to higher levels and survived in increased numbers.
82:3.8 The fact that ancient peoples regarded it as a disgrace, or even a sin, not to be married, explains the origin of child marriages; since one must be married, the earlier the better. It was also a general belief that unmarried persons could not enter spiritland, and this was a further incentive to child marriages even at birth and sometimes before birth, contingent upon sex. The ancients believed that even the dead must be married. [!] The original matchmakers were employed to negotiate marriages for deceased individuals. One parent would arrange for these intermediaries to effect the marriage of a dead son with a dead daughter of another family. [The shaman or priest back then might have said: "If any dead peron objects to this dead marriage, let him or her so speak ... Good ! No objections. You are now married dead ! Ha ha]
82:3.14 Many primitive tribes sanctioned trial marriage until the woman became pregnant, when the regular marriage ceremony would be performed; among other groups the wedding was not celebrated until the first child was born. If a wife was barren, she had to be redeemed by her parents, and the marriage was annulled. The mores demanded that every pair have children. [Because of many tribal wars, frequent diseases and accidents, life expectancy might have been only 30 years or less. More children was, and still is, old age insurance.]
PAPER 83 THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION
4. THE WEDDING CEREMONY
83:4.2 Magic, ritual, and ceremony surrounded the entire life of the ancients, and marriage was no exception. As civilization advanced, as marriage became more seriously regarded, the wedding ceremony became increasingly pretentious. Early marriage was a factor in property interests, even as it is today, and therefore required a legal ceremony, while the social status of subsequent children demanded the widest possible publicity. Primitive man had no records; therefore must the marriage ceremony be witnessed by many persons.
83:4.4 Childlessness was greatly dreaded, and since barrenness was attributed to spirit machinations, efforts to insure fecundity also led to the association of marriage with certain magical or religious ceremonials. And in this effort to insure a happy and fertile marriage, many charms were employed; even the astrologers were consulted to ascertain the birth stars of the contracting parties. At one time the human sacrifice was a regular feature of all weddings among well-to-do people. [Blessed then were the poor; they murdered fellow humans less ! More children were also desired to make up for all the human sacrifices !]
5. PLURAL MARRIAGES
83:5.1 In the early history of marriage the unmarried women belonged to the men of the tribe. Later on, a woman had only one husband at a time. This practice of one-man-at-a-time was the first step away from the promiscuity of the herd. [also called "barnyard sex"] While a woman was allowed but one man, her husband could sever such temporary relationships at will. But these loosely regulated associations were the first step toward living pairwise in distinction to living herdwise. In this stage of marriage development children usually belonged to the mother.
83:5.2 The next step in mating evolution was the group marriage. This communal phase of marriage had to intervene in the unfolding of family life because the marriage mores were not yet strong enough to make pair associations permanent. The brother and sister marriages belonged to this group; five brothers of one family would marry five sisters of another. All over the world the looser forms of communal marriage gradually evolved into various types of group marriage. And these group associations were largely regulated by the totem mores. Family life slowly and surely developed because sex and marriage regulation favored the survival of the tribe itself by insuring the survival of larger numbers of children.
83:5.10 True polygyny, where all the wives are of equal status and all the children equal, has been very rare. Usually, even with plural marriages, the home was dominated by the head wife, the status companion. She alone had the ritual wedding ceremony, and only the children of such a purchased or dowered spouse could inherit unless by special arrangement with the status wife.
83:5.12 The taboo wife — one wife of legal status — created the concubine mores. Under these mores a man might have only one wife, but he could maintain sex relations with any number of concubines. [Some live on this low, immoral level today !] Concubinage was the steppingstone to monogamy, the first move away from frank polygyny. The concubines of the Jews, Romans, and Chinese were very frequently the handmaidens of the wife. Later on, as among the Jews, the legal wife was looked upon as the mother of all children born to the husband.
83:5.13 The olden taboos on sex relations with a pregnant or nursing wife tended greatly to foster polygyny. Primitive women aged very early because of frequent childbearing coupled with hard work. (Such overburdened wives only managed to exist by virtue of the fact that they were put in isolation one week out of each month when they were not heavy with child.) Such a wife often grew tired of bearing children and would request her husband to take a second and younger wife, one able to help with both childbearing and the domestic work. The new wives were therefore usually hailed with delight by the older spouses; there existed nothing on the order of sex jealousy.
83:5.14 The number of wives was only limited by the ability of the man to provide for them. Wealthy and able men wanted large numbers of children, and since the infant mortality was very high, it required an assembly of wives to recruit a large family. Many of these plural wives were mere laborers, slave wives.
Topical Study 90 "Child of God and Child of Man"
Compiled 8/19/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 6 of many]
PAPER 83 THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION, Cont.
6. TRUE MONOGAMY — PAIR MARRIAGE
[Important ! Divorce rates are dangerously high in the Western world today; and desire to raise your own beloved children is too low ! Islamics have far more children than Christians and most other religions; so it is predicted that harsher Islamic sharia law will take over all of Europe and the Middle East in about 10-20 more years. Maybe that is needed to eliminate rampant godless secular humanism and atheism ! Count the costs of not following God ! ]
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
83:6.1 Monogamy is monopoly; it is good for those who attain this desirable state, but it tends to work a biologic hardship on those who are not so fortunate. But quite regardless of the effect on the individual, monogamy is decidedly best for the children. [Marriage is mainly to protect the children who must be raised only by one loving father and one loving mother who stay married and properly intellectually, morally and spiritually train their own beloved children -- each a divinely beloved, male or female, son of God in Spirit and in Truth ! Amen !]
83:6.2 The earliest monogamy was due to force of circumstances, poverty. Monogamy is cultural and societal, artificial and unnatural, that is, unnatural to evolutionary man. It was wholly natural to the purer Nodites and Adamites and has been of great cultural value to all advanced races.
83:6.3 The Chaldean tribes recognized the right of a wife to impose a premarital pledge upon her spouse not to take a second wife or concubine; both the Greeks and the Romans favored monogamous marriage. Ancestor worship has always fostered monogamy, as has the Christian error of regarding marriage as a sacrament. Even the elevation of the standard of living has consistently militated against plural wives. By the time of [our Universe Creator Christ] Michael’s advent [as Jesus Christ Michael] on Earth, practically all of the civilized world had attained the level of theoretical monogamy. But this passive monogamy did not mean that mankind had become habituated to the practice of real pair marriage.
83:6.6 Monogamy always has been, now is, and forever will be the idealistic goal of human sex evolution. This ideal of true pair marriage entails self-denial, and therefore does it so often fail just because one or both of the contracting parties are deficient in that acme of all human virtues, rugged self-control.
83:6.7 Monogamy is the yardstick which measures the advance of social civilization as distinguished from purely biologic evolution. Monogamy is not necessarily biologic or natural, but it is indispensable to the immediate maintenance and further development of social civilization. It contributes to a delicacy of sentiment, a refinement of moral character, and a spiritual growth which are utterly impossible in polygamy. A woman never can become an ideal mother [and thus properly raise and train their beloved children] when she is all the while compelled to engage in rivalry for her husband’s affections.
83:6.8 Pair marriage favors and fosters that intimate understanding and effective co-operation which is best for parental happiness, child welfare, and social efficiency. Marriage, which began in crude coercion, is gradually evolving into a magnificent institution of self-culture, self-control, self-expression, and self-perpetuation. [which is only posible with one man and one woman to establish a real home to procreate their own children and thus have a true family. More on this in the next Paper 84.]
7. THE DISSOLUTION OF WEDLOCK
83:7.1 In the early evolution of the marital mores, marriage was a loose union which could be terminated at will, and the children always followed the mother; the mother-child bond is instinctive and has functioned regardless of the developmental stage of the mores.
83:7.2 Among primitive peoples only about one half the marriages proved satisfactory. The most frequent cause for separation was barrenness, which was always blamed on the wife; and childless wives were believed to become snakes in the spirit world. Under the more primitive mores, divorce was had at the option of the man alone, and these standards have persisted to the twentieth century among some peoples. [Now, Western society is so immoral and selfish, more than one half of all marriages, and maybe 75% of those "living together", result in divorce or separation to find another mate ! This is very detrimental to the children !]
83:7.6 The real test of marriage, all down through the ages, has been that continuous intimacy which is inescapable in all family life. Two pampered and spoiled youths, educated to expect every indulgence and full gratification of vanity and ego, can hardly hope to make a great success of marriage and home building — a lifelong partnership of self-effacement, compromise, devotion, and unselfish dedication to child culture.
PAPER 84 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE
1. PRIMITIVE PAIR ASSOCIATIONS
84:1.1 Marriage was not founded on sex relations; they were incidental thereto. Marriage was not needed by primitive man, who indulged his sex appetite freely without encumbering himself with the responsibilities of wife, children, and home. [Far too many men, and now even some women, are selfish and irresponsible; thus they act as primitives, reject children and marriage and engage in animalistic "herd sex". That is also physically dangerous and tends to greatly reduce one's lifespan !]
84:1.2 Woman, because of physical and emotional attachment to her offspring, is dependent on cooperation with the male, and this urges her into the sheltering protection of marriage. But no direct biologic urge led man into marriage — much less held him in. It was not love that made marriage attractive to man, but food hunger which first attracted savage man to woman and the primitive shelter shared by her children.
84:1.3 Marriage was not even brought about by the conscious realization of the obligations of sex relations. Primitive man comprehended no connection between sex indulgence and the subsequent birth of a child. [true !] It was once universally believed that a virgin could become pregnant. The savage early conceived the idea that babies were made in spiritland; pregnancy was believed to be the result of a woman’s being entered by a spirit, an evolving ghost. Both diet and the evil eye were also believed to be capable of causing pregnancy in a virgin or unmarried woman, while later beliefs connected the beginnings of life with the breath and with sunlight. [Today, some young children are deceived by their parents; and are told that "the stork" brings the baby. It is better to be honest with your children, and not tell them fantasies.]
84:1.5 The first step in enlightenment came with the belief that sex relations opened up the way for the impregnating ghost to enter the female. Man has since discovered that father and mother are equal contributors of the living inheritance [genetic] factors which initiate offspring. But even in the twentieth century [circa A.D. 1935] many parents still endeavor to keep their children in more or less ignorance as to the origin of human life.
84:1.6 A family of some simple sort was insured by the fact that the reproductive function entails the mother-child relationship. Mother love is instinctive; it did not originate in the mores as did marriage. All mammalian mother love is the inherent endowment of the adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe [Mother Spirit - our Holy Spirit] and is in strength and devotion always directly proportional to the length of the helpless infancy of the species.
84:1.7 The mother and child relation is natural, strong, and instinctive, and one which, therefore, constrained primitive women to submit to many strange conditions and to endure untold hardships. This compelling mother love is the handicapping emotion which has always placed woman at such a tremendous disadvantage in all her struggles with man. Even at that, maternal instinct in the human species is not overpowering; it may be thwarted by ambition, selfishness, and religious conviction.
84:1.8 While the mother-child association is neither marriage nor home, it was the nucleus from which both sprang. The great advance in the evolution of mating came when these temporary partnerships lasted long enough to rear the resultant offspring, for that was homemaking.
84:1.9 [Important:] Regardless of the antagonisms of these early pairs, notwithstanding the looseness of the association, the chances for survival were greatly improved by these male-female partnerships. A man and a woman, co-operating, even aside from family and offspring, are vastly superior in most ways to either two men or two women. [Yes, each child needs BOTH the male and female parental training; failure to so regulate marriage will result in the destruction of any society ! See the dire warning in 84:8 "THE DANGERS OF SELF-GRATIFICATION" authored by a Paradise-level Super-angel working here now on Earth ! She is in charge of billions of seraphim angels here !] This pairing of the sexes enhanced survival and was the very beginning of human society. The sex division of labor also made for comfort and increased happiness.
2. THE EARLY MOTHER-FAMILY
84:2.1 The woman’s periodic hemorrhage and her further loss of blood at childbirth early suggested blood as the creator of the child (even as the seat of the soul) and gave origin to the blood-bond concept of human relationships. In early times all descent was reckoned in the female line, that being the only part of inheritance which was at all certain. [Becaused of primitive herd sex also called barnyard sex ! The real father was unknown !]
84:2.2 The primitive family, growing out of the instinctive biologic blood bond of mother and child, was inevitably a mother-family; and many tribes long held to this arrangement. The mother-family was the only possible transition from the stage of group marriage in the horde to the later and improved home life of the polygamous and monogamous father-families. The mother-family was natural and biologic; the father-family is social, economic, and political. The persistence of the mother-family among the North American red men is one of the chief reasons why the otherwise progressive Iroquois never became a real state.
84:2.3 Under the mother-family mores the wife’s mother enjoyed virtually supreme authority in the home; even the wife’s brothers and their sons were more active in family supervision than was the husband. Fathers were often renamed after their own children.
84:2.4 The earliest races gave little credit to the father, looking upon the child as coming altogether from the mother. They believed that children resembled the father as a result of association, or that they were “marked” in this manner because the mother desired them to look like the father. Later on, when the switch came from the mother-family to the father-family, the father took all credit for the child, and many of the taboos on a pregnant woman were subsequently extended to include her husband. The prospective father ceased work as the time of delivery approached, and at childbirth he went to bed, along with the wife, remaining at rest from three to eight days. The wife might arise the next day and engage in hard labor, but the husband remained in bed to receive congratulations; this was all a part of the early mores designed to establish the father’s right to the child. [Stupid ! But that really happened ! Ha ha]
84:2.5 At first, it was the custom for the man to go to his wife’s people, but in later times, after a man had paid or worked out the bride price, he could take his wife and children back to his own people. The transition from the mother-family to the father-family explains the otherwise meaningless prohibitions of some types of cousin marriages while others of equal kinship are approved.
84:2.6 With the passing of the hunter mores, when herding gave man control of the chief food supply, the mother-family came to a speedy end. It failed simply because it could not successfully compete with the newer father-family. Power lodged with the male relatives of the mother could not compete with power concentrated in the husband-father. Woman was not equal to the combined tasks of childbearing and of exercising continuous authority and increasing domestic power. The oncoming of wife stealing and later wife purchase hastened the passing of the mother-family.
84:2.7 The stupendous change from the mother-family to the father-family is one of the most radical and complete right-about-face adjustments ever executed by the human race. This change led at once to greater social expression and increased family adventure.
3. THE FAMILY UNDER FATHER DOMINANCE
84:3.7 Woman has always had to work; at least right up to modern times the female has been a real producer. Man has usually chosen the easier path, and this inequality has existed throughout the entire history of the human race. Woman has always been the burden bearer, carrying the family property and tending the children, thus leaving the man’s hands free for fighting or hunting.
84:3.8 Woman’s first liberation came when man consented to till the soil, consented to do what had theretofore been regarded as woman’s work. It was a great step forward when male captives were no longer killed but were enslaved as agriculturists. This brought about the liberation of woman so that she could devote more time to homemaking and child culture.
84:3.9 The provision of milk for the young led to earlier weaning of babies, hence to the bearing of more children by the mothers thus relieved of their sometimes temporary barrenness, while the use of cow’s milk and goat’s milk greatly reduced infant mortality. Before the herding stage of society, mothers used to nurse their babies until they were four and five years old.
4. WOMAN’S STATUS IN EARLY SOCIETY
84:4.6 Childbearing was once generally looked upon as rendering a woman dangerous and unclean. And many tribal mores decreed that a mother must undergo extensive purification ceremonies subsequent to the birth of a child. Except among those groups where the husband participated in the lying-in, the expectant mother was shunned, left alone. The ancients even avoided having a child born in the house. Finally, the old women were permitted to attend the mother during labor, and this practice gave origin to the profession of midwifery. During labor, scores of foolish things were said and done in an effort to facilitate delivery. It was the custom to sprinkle the newborn with holy water to prevent ghost interference.
84:4.7 Among the unmixed tribes, childbirth was comparatively easy, occupying only two or three hours; it is seldom so easy among the mixed races. If a woman died in childbirth, especially during the delivery of twins, she was believed to have been guilty of spirit adultery. Later on, the higher tribes looked upon death in childbirth as the will of heaven; such mothers were regarded as having perished in a noble cause.
84:4.8 The so-called modesty of women respecting their clothing and the exposure of the person grew out of the deadly fear of being observed at the time of a menstrual period. To be thus detected was a grievous sin, the violation of a taboo. Under the mores of olden times, every woman, from adolescence to the end of the childbearing period, was subjected to complete family and social quarantine one full week each month. Everything she might touch, sit upon, or lie upon was “defiled.” It was for long the custom to brutally beat a girl after each monthly period in an effort to drive the evil spirit out of her body. But when a woman passed beyond the childbearing age, she was usually treated more considerately, being accorded more rights and privileges. In view of all this it was not strange that women were looked down upon. Even the Greeks held the menstruating woman as one of the three great causes of defilement, the other two being pork and garlic.
5. WOMAN UNDER THE DEVELOPING MORES
84:5.2 As society evolved, the sex standards rose higher among women because they suffered more from the consequences of the transgression of the sex mores. Man’s sex standards are only tardily improving as a result of the sheer sense of that fairness which civilization demands. Nature knows nothing of fairness — makes woman alone suffer the pangs of childbirth. [Yes, physical nature is evolving, but still has flaws. This is due to the Lucifer-Satan-Caligastia rebellions that started 200,000 years ago ;and due to nature being made by God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit to have some defects to help us gain skills and soul advancement and spiritual wisdom. For a good explanation of this, peruse 3:5 "THE FATHER'S SUPREME RULE"]
7. THE IDEALS OF FAMILY LIFE
84:7.1 Sex mating is instinctive, children are the natural result, and the family thus automatically comes into existence. As are the families of the race or nation, so is its society. If the families are good, the society is likewise good. The great cultural stability of the Jewish and of the Chinese peoples lies in the strength of their family groups.
84:7.2 Woman’s instinct to love and care for children conspired to make her the interested party in promoting marriage and primitive family life. Man was only forced into home building by the pressure of the later mores and social conventions; he was slow to take an interest in the establishment of marriage and home because the sex act imposes no biologic consequences upon him.
84:7.3 Sex association is natural, but marriage is social and has always been regulated by the mores. The mores (religious, moral, and ethical), together with property, pride, and chivalry, stabilize the institutions of marriage and family. Whenever the mores fluctuate, there is fluctuation in the stability of the home-marriage institution. Marriage is now passing out of the property stage into the personal era. Formerly man protected woman because she was his chattel, and she obeyed for the same reason. Regardless of its merits this system did provide stability. Now, woman is no longer regarded as property, and new mores are emerging designed to stabilize the marriage-home institution:
84:7.4 1. The new role of religion — the teaching that parental experience is essential, the idea of procreating cosmic citizens, the enlarged understanding of the privilege of procreation — giving sons to the Father.
84:7.5 2. The new role of science — procreation is becoming more and more voluntary, subject to man’s control. In ancient times lack of understanding insured the appearance of children in the absence of all desire therefor.
84:7.6 3. The new function of pleasure lures — this introduces a new factor into racial survival; ancient man exposed undesired children to die; moderns refuse to bear them.
84:7.7 4. [An important revelation and good news !] The enhancement of parental instinct — each generation now tends to eliminate from the reproductive stream of the race those individuals in whom parental instinct is insufficiently strong to insure the procreation of children, the prospective parents of the next generation.
84:7.8 [Important !] But the home as an institution, a partnership between one man and one woman, dates more specifically from the days of Dalamatia, about one-half million years ago, the monogamous practices of Andon and his immediate descendants having been abandoned long before. Family life, however, was not much to boast of before the days of the Nodites and the later Adamites. Adam and Eve exerted a lasting influence on all mankind; for the first time in the history of the world men and women were observed working side by side in the Garden. The Edenic ideal, the whole family as gardeners, was a new idea on Earth.
84:7.9 The early family embraced a related working group, including the slaves, all living in one dwelling. Marriage and family life have not always been identical but have of necessity been closely associated. Woman always wanted the individual family, and eventually she had her way.
84:7.10 Love of offspring is almost universal and is of distinct survival value. The ancients always sacrificed the mother’s interests for the welfare of the child; an Eskimo mother even yet licks her baby in lieu of washing. But primitive mothers only nourished and cared for their children when very young; like the animals, they discarded them as soon as they grew up. Enduring and continuous human associations have never been founded on biologic affection alone. The animals love their children; man — civilized man — loves his children’s children. The higher the civilization, the greater the joy of parents in the children’s advancement and success; thus the new and higher realization of name pride comes into existence.
Topical Study 90 "Child of God and Child of Man"
Compiled 8/21/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 7 of many]
PAPER 84 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE, Cont.
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
84:7.25 The olden ideas of family discipline were biologic, growing out of the realization that parents were creators of the child’s being. The advancing ideals of family life are leading to the concept that bringing a child into the world, instead of conferring certain parental rights, entails the supreme responsibility of human existence. [Yes, the hand that rocks the cradle fraternizes with destiny !]
84:7.26 Civilization regards the parents as assuming all duties, the child as having all the rights. Respect of the child for his parents arises, not in knowledge of the obligation implied in parental procreation, but naturally grows as a result of the care, training, and affection which are lovingly displayed in assisting the child to win the battle of life. The true parent is engaged in a continuous service-ministry which the wise child comes to recognize and appreciate.
84:7.27 In the present industrial and urban era the marriage institution is evolving along new economic lines. Family life has become more and more costly, while children, who used to be an asset, have become economic liabilities. But the security of civilization itself still rests on the growing willingness of one generation to invest in the welfare of the next and future generations. And any attempt to shift parental responsibility to state or church will prove suicidal to the welfare and advancement of civilization. [Caution !!]
84:7.28 Marriage, with children and consequent family life, is stimulative of the highest potentials in human nature and simultaneously provides the ideal avenue for the expression of these quickened attributes of mortal personality. The family provides for the biologic perpetuation of the human species. The home is the natural social arena wherein the ethics of blood brotherhood may be grasped by the growing children. The family is the fundamental unit of fraternity in which parents and children learn those lessons of patience, altruism, tolerance, and forbearance which are so essential to the realization of brotherhood among all men.
84:7.30 Family life is the progenitor of true morality, the ancestor of the consciousness of loyalty to duty. The enforced associations of family life stabilize personality and stimulate its growth through the compulsion of necessitous adjustment to other and diverse personalities. But even more, a true family — a good family — reveals to the parental procreators the attitude of the Creator to his children, while at the same time such true parents portray to their children the first of a long series of ascending disclosures of the love of the Paradise Parent of all universe children. {Humans get the Gifts of unchanging personality and the Spirit Essence of God within their souls and minds directly from God the Universal Father on Paradise. We get the Gift of life and universe existencce from our Universe Creator Father-Son of God Jesus Christ Michael; and we get the Gift of mind from our Universe Creative Spirit Minister; She is the co-equal Partner of Jesus.]
8. DANGERS OF SELF-GRATIFICATION
84:8.4 There is real danger in the combination of restlessness, curiosity, adventure, and pleasure-abandon characteristic of the post-Andite races. The hunger of the soul cannot be satisfied with physical pleasures; the love of home and children is not augmented by the unwise pursuit of pleasure. Though you exhaust the resources of art, color, sound, rhythm, music, and adornment of person, you cannot hope thereby to elevate the soul or to nourish the spirit. Vanity and fashion cannot minister to home building and child culture; pride and rivalry are powerless to enhance the survival qualities of succeeding generations.
84:8.6 [CAUTION !:] Let man enjoy himself; let the human race find pleasure in a thousand and one ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate self-gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home — man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival. [That serious warning was given by a high Paradise-level Primary Supernaphim; She is now working on Earth as the Chief of all Seraphim !]
84:8.7 {Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Earth.}
PAPER 85 THE ORIGINS OF WORSHIP
2. WORSHIP OF PLANTS AND TREES
85:2.3 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. [There are some "tree-huggers" still today ! Ha ha. And alcoholic drinks are still falsely called "spirits".]
PAPER 91 THE EVOLUTION OF PRAYER
3. PRAYER AND THE ALTER EGO
91:3.1 Children, when first learning to make use of language, are prone to think out loud, to express their thoughts in words, even if no one is present to hear them. With the dawn of [God-given] creative imagination they evince a tendency to converse with imaginary companions. In this way a budding ego seeks to hold communion with a fictitious alter ego. By this technique the child early learns to convert his monologue conversations into pseudo dialogues in which this alter ego makes replies to his verbal thinking and wish expression. Very much of an adult’s thinking is mentally carried on in conversational form.
4. ETHICAL PRAYING
91:4.3 In all your praying be fair; do not expect God to show partiality, to love you more than his other children, your friends, neighbors, even enemies. But the prayer of the natural or evolved religions is not at first ethical, as it is in the later revealed religions. All praying, whether individual or communal, may be either egoistic or altruistic. That is, the prayer may be centered upon the self or upon others. When the prayer seeks nothing for the one who prays nor anything for his fellows, then such attitudes of the soul tend to the levels of true worship. Egoistic prayers involve confessions and petitions and often consist in requests for material favors. Prayer is somewhat more ethical when it deals with forgiveness and seeks wisdom for enhanced self-control.
91:4.4 While the nonselfish type of prayer is strengthening and comforting, materialistic praying is destined to bring disappointment and disillusionment as advancing scientific discoveries demonstrate that man lives in a physical universe of law and order. The childhood of an individual or a race is characterized by primitive, selfish, and materialistic praying. And, to a certain extent, all such petitions are efficacious in that they unvaryingly lead to those efforts and exertions which are contributory to achieving the answers to such prayers. The real prayer of faith always contributes to the augmentation of the technique of living, even if such petitions are not worthy of spiritual recognition. But the spiritually advanced person should exercise great caution in attempting to discourage the primitive or immature mind regarding such prayers. [Poor prayers, if sincere and in faith, are better than none at all ! If you tell someone that they are not praying right, that might shut them down ! Great caution is thus needed.]
8. PRAYING AS A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
91:8.6 Prayer may be the childlike plea for the impossible or the mature entreaty for moral growth and spiritual power. A petition may be for daily bread or may embody a wholehearted yearning to find God and to do his will. It may be a wholly selfish request or a true and magnificent gesture toward the realization of unselfish brotherhood.
91:8.8 [Important:] Modern man is perplexed by the thought of talking things over with God in a purely personal way. Many have abandoned regular praying; they only pray when under unusual pressure — in emergencies. Man should be unafraid to talk to God, but only a spiritual child would undertake to persuade, or presume to change, God.
PAPER 92 THE LATER EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
92:7.11 Religious meanings progress in self-consciousness when the child transfers his ideas of omnipotence from his parents to God. And the entire religious experience of such a child is largely dependent on whether fear or love has dominated the parent-child relationship. Slaves have always experienced great difficulty in transferring their master-fear into concepts of God-love. Civilization, science, and advanced religions must deliver mankind from those fears born of the dread of natural phenomena. And so should greater enlightenment deliver educated mortals from all dependence on intermediaries in Communion with Deity. [Direct Personal God-consciousness at all times and in all places, with no mere shamans, priests, temple tycoons praying to God for you becasue they say they know more, or have a special connection. "Priesthood of all believers in God !"]
PAPER 98 THE MELCHIZEDEK TEACHINGS IN THE OCCIDENT
7. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
98:7.12 And this is the long story of the teachings of Machiventa Melchizedek on Earth. It is nearly four thousand years since this emergency Son of Nebadon bestowed himself on Earth, and in that time the teachings of the “priest of El Elyon, the Most High God,” have penetrated to all races and peoples. And Machiventa was successful in achieving the purpose of his unusual bestowal; when Michael made ready to appear on Earth, the God concept was existent in the hearts of men and women, the same God concept that still flames anew in the living spiritual experience of the manifold children of the Universal Father as they live their intriguing temporal lives on the whirling planets of space. [Seven trillion human-inhabited planets in this first supreme-level Grand Universe Age. There is full potential for an infinite number of them, plus many other infinities; as God the Father-Infinite I AM is fully Super-infinite and Transcendent to even an infinite number of infinities. This means that we ascending children of God will forever grow without end ! and never will there be any crowding in the infinite Family of the Father-Infinite I AM !]
PAPER 99 THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RELIGION
4. TRANSITION DIFFICULTIES
99:4.2 Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight; religion prevents all collective movements from losing sight of their true objectives. Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. Family life cannot be had without children; [True, a man and woman living together are only a couple; three humans are the minimum social unit to make a family] it can be lived without religion, but such a handicap enormously multiplies the difficulties of this intimate human association. During the early decades of the twentieth century, family life, next to personal religious experience, suffers most from the decadence consequent upon the transition from old religious loyalties to the emerging new meanings and values.
5. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF RELIGION
99:5.5 The doctrine of the total depravity of man destroyed much of the potential of religion for effecting social repercussions of an uplifting nature and of inspirational value. Jesus sought to restore man’s dignity when he declared that all men [all humans] are the children of God.
PAPER 100 RELIGION IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1. RELIGIOUS GROWTH
100:1.1 While religion produces growth of meanings and enhancement of values, evil always results when purely personal evaluations are elevated to the levels of absolutes. A child evaluates experience in accordance with the content of pleasure; maturity is proportional to the substitution of higher meanings for personal pleasure, even loyalties to the highest concepts of diversified life situations and cosmic relations.
100:1.3 Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready-made adult experience upon him. Remember, year-by-year progress through an established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth. Enlargement of vocabulary does not signify development of character. Growth is not truly indicated by mere products but rather by progress. Real educational growth is indicated by enhancement of ideals, increased appreciation of values, new meanings of values, and augmented loyalty to supreme values.
100:1.4 Children are permanently impressed only by the loyalties of their adult associates; precept or even example is not lastingly influential. Loyal persons are growing persons, and growth is an impressive and inspiring reality. Live loyally today — grow — and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.
4. PROBLEMS OF GROWTH
[These three paragraphs are very important; please do share these with others. Peace and progress !]
100:4.4 In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
100:4.5 In the mind’s eye conjure up a picture of one of your primitive ancestors of cave-dwelling times — a short, misshapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man standing, legs spread, club upraised, breathing hate and animosity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a picture hardly depicts the divine dignity of man. But allow us to enlarge the picture. In front of this animated human crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Behind him, a woman and two children. Immediately you recognize that such a picture stands for the beginnings of much that is fine and noble in the human race, but the man is the same in both pictures. Only, in the second sketch you are favored with a widened horizon. You therein discern the motivation of this evolving mortal. His attitude becomes praiseworthy because you understand him. If you could only fathom the motives of your associates, how much better you would understand them. If you could only [truly] know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.
100:4.6 You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man. [Thank our Father God; as that is our certain destiny -- Light and Life on Earth and everywhere !]
6. MARKS OF RELIGIOUS LIVING
100:6.1 Evolutionary religions and revelatory religions may differ markedly in method, but in motive there is great similarity. Religion is not a specific function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause. [For example today: the false religion of "Mother Earth" and protecting "her" and us from "global warming" or "climate change" foolishness ! That is both false religion and false science; but is great for political tyrants to further control us.]
7. [JESUS IS] THE ACME OF RELIGIOUS LIVING
100:7.7 Of Jesus it was truly said, “He trusted God.” As a man among men he most sublimely trusted the Father in heaven. He trusted his Father as a little child trusts his earthly parent. His faith was perfect but never presumptuous. No matter how cruel nature might appear to be or how indifferent to man’s welfare on earth, Jesus never faltered in his faith. He was immune to disappointment and impervious to persecution. He was untouched by apparent failure.
100:7.14 His courage was equaled only by his patience. When pressed to act prematurely, he would only reply, “My hour has not yet come.” He was never in a hurry; his composure was sublime. But he was often indignant at evil, intolerant of sin. He was often mightily moved to resist that which was inimical to the welfare of his children [all of us !] on Earth. But his indignation against sin never led to anger at the sinner.
100:7.17 Jesus was great because he was good, and yet he fraternized with the little children. He was gentle and unassuming in his personal life, and yet he was the perfected Man of a universe. His associates called him Master unbidden.
PAPER 101 THE REAL NATURE OF RELIGION
2. THE FACT OF RELIGION
101:2.13 True religion is an insight into Reality, the faith-child of the moral consciousness, and not a mere intellectual assent to any body of dogmatic doctrines. True religion consists in the experience that “the [Universe Father-Son] Spirit itself bears witness with our [indwelling Thought Adjuster] Spirit that we are the children of God.” Religion consists not in theologic propositions but in spiritual insight and the sublimity of the soul’s trust.
3. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF RELIGION
101:3.2 Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, is the endowment of the cosmic mind in association with the Thought Adjuster, which is the Father’s gift to man. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, is the endowment of the Holy Spirit, the Creative Spirit’s gift to man. Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth, the combined gift of the bestowal Sons to the children of men. And the coordination and interassociation of these Spirit endowments constitute man a Spirit personality in potential Destiny. [!!!]
10. RELIGION AS MAN’S LIBERATOR
101:10.4 It is only through the morontial [super-conscious soul] avenue leading to spiritual insight that man can ever break the fetters inherent in his mortal status in the universe. Energy and mind do lead back to Paradise and Deity, but neither the energy endowment nor the mind endowment of man proceeds directly from such Paradise Deity. Only in the spiritual sense is man a child of God. And this is true because it is only in the spiritual sense that man is at present endowed and indwelt by the Paradise Father. Mankind can never discover divinity except through the avenue of religious experience and by the exercise of true faith. The faith acceptance of the truth of God enables man to escape from the circumscribed confines of material limitations and affords him a rational hope of achieving safe conduct from the material realm, whereon is death, to the spiritual realm, wherein is life eternal. [Thank You, our loving and merciful Father God !!!]
Topical Study 90 "Child of God and Child of Man"
Compiled 8/24/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 8 of many]
PAPER 102 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH
0. Introduction
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
102:0.1 To the unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless despair is man’s only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.
102:0.2 But such is not man’s end and eternal destiny; such a vision is but the cry of despair uttered by some wandering soul who has become lost in spiritual darkness, and who bravely struggles on in the face of the mechanistic sophistries of a material philosophy, blinded by the confusion and distortion of a complex learning. And all this doom of darkness and all this destiny of despair are forever dispelled by one brave stretch of faith on the part of the most humble and unlearned of God’s children on earth.
1. ASSURANCES OF FAITH
102:1.1 The work of the Thought Adjuster [God's will living within you to try to perfect you !] constitutes the explanation of the translation of man’s primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that higher and more certain faith in the eternal realities of Revelation. There must be perfection hunger in man’s heart to insure capacity for comprehending the faith paths to supreme attainment. If any man chooses to do the divine will, he shall know the Way of Truth. It is literally true, “Human things must be known in order to be loved, but divine things must be loved in order to be known.” But honest doubts and sincere questionings are not sin; such attitudes merely spell delay in the progressive journey toward perfection attainment. Childlike trust secures man’s entrance into the kingdom of heavenly ascent, but progress is wholly dependent on the vigorous exercise of the robust and confident faith of the full-grown man.
2. RELIGION AND REALITY
102:2.1 Observing minds and discriminating souls know religion when they find it in the lives of their fellows. Religion requires no definition; we all know its social, intellectual, moral, and spiritual fruits. And this all grows out of the fact that religion is the property of the human race; it is not a child of culture. True, one’s perception of religion is still human and therefore subject to the bondage of ignorance, the slavery of superstition, the deceptions of sophistication, and the delusions of false philosophy.
102:6.9 The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator. [Thank God that our scientists -- astronomers, cosmologists, mathematicians --are now finding serious problems with the "Big Bang" theory ! They are now thinking of an eternal universe or an ever-evolving universe. (Web search "New Physics") The Big Bang theory states that there was nothing at all; then only about 12 or 13 billion years ago, there was this "big explosion" that created everything we know about and experience ! But something or all things can never come from nothing; they can only come from a larger Something that controls progressivce evolution; that is obvious to rational persons.]
7. THE CERTITUDE OF THE DIVINE
102:7.3 [Powerful truths !] Those who would invent a religion without God are like those who would gather fruit without trees, have children without parents. You cannot have effects without causes; only the [One God the Father-Infinite] I AM is causeless. The fact of religious experience implies God, and such a God of personal experience must be a personal Deity. You cannot pray to a chemical formula, supplicate a mathematical equation, worship a hypothesis, confide in a postulate, commune with a process, serve an abstraction, or hold loving fellowship with a law.
PAPER 103 THE REALITY OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
2. RELIGION AND THE INDIVIDUAL
103:2.1 Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. [Yes, this Revelation affirms that a living sperm-egg union is a living human person ! A new living child of God in the Family of God !] But the “birth” of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a “birth day.” You do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless you have been “born again” — born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a “stormy labor” and other abnormalities of “delivery.” Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the “birth of religion” is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.
103:2.2 But those persons who were so reared by their parents that they grew up in the consciousness of being children of a loving heavenly Father, should not look askance [look with disapproval] at their fellow mortals who could only attain such consciousness of fellowship with God through a psychological crisis, an emotional upheaval.
103:2.3 The evolutionary soil in the mind of man in which the seed of revealed religion germinates is the moral nature that so early gives origin to a social consciousness. The first promptings of a child’s moral nature have not to do with sex, guilt, or personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice, fairness, and urges to kindness — helpful ministry to one’s fellows. And when such early moral awakenings are nurtured, there occurs a gradual development of the religious life which is comparatively free from conflicts, upheavals, and crises.
103:2.5 The psychology of a child is naturally positive, not negative. So many mortals are negative because they were so trained. When it is said that the child is positive, reference is made to his moral impulses, those powers of mind whose emergence signals the arrival of the Thought Adjuster. [on Earth now, at about 5.5 -6 years on average.]
103:2.6 In the absence of wrong teaching, the mind of the normal child moves positively, in the emergence of religious consciousness, toward moral righteousness and social ministry, rather than negatively, away from sin and guilt. There may or may not be conflict in the development of religious experience, but there are always present the inevitable decisions, effort, and function of the human will.
103:2.7 Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
103:2.9 But before a child has developed sufficiently to acquire moral capacity and therefore to be able to choose altruistic service, he has already developed a strong and well-unified egoistic nature. And it is this factual situation that gives rise to the theory of the struggle between the “higher” and the “lower” natures, between the “old man of sin” and the “new nature” of grace. Very early in life the normal child begins to learn that it is “more blessed to give than to receive.”
103:2.10 Man tends to identify the urge to be self-serving with his ego — himself. In contrast he is inclined to identify the will to be altruistic with some influence outside himself — God. And indeed is such a judgment right, for all such nonself desires do actually have their origin in the leadings of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and this Adjuster is a fragment of God. The impulse of the Spirit Monitor is realized in human consciousness as the urge to be altruistic, fellow-creature minded. At least this is the early and fundamental experience of the child mind. When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.
4. SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
103:4.4 Jesus swept away all of the ceremonials of sacrifice and atonement. He destroyed the basis of all this fictitious guilt and sense of isolation in the universe by declaring that man is a child of God; the creature-Creator relationship was placed on a child-parent basis. God becomes a loving Father to his mortal sons and daughters. All ceremonials not a legitimate part of such an intimate family relationship are forever abrogated. [Many church traditions and ceremonials today are wrong and obsolete -- dogmatic, ancient traditions -- trumpet blasts from the dark ages -- dark pagan rituals ostensibly performed by temple tycoons. Some are leaving these stagnant churches and practicing personal God-consciousness at all time and in all places !]
103:4.5 [Important !] God the Father deals with man his child on the basis, not of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child’s motivation — the creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent-child association and is actuated by divine love.
PAPER 107 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
0. Introduction
107:0.1 Although the Universal Father is personally resident on Paradise, at the very center of the universes, he is also actually present on the worlds of space in the minds of his countless children of time, [in this first Grand Universe age, there are about 6 x (10 to the 22 power) humans, and 7 x ( 10 to 22nd ) when complete, plus countless other beings living and working on seven trillion human-inhabited planets] for he indwells them as the Mystery Monitors. The eternal Father is at one and the same time farthest removed from, and most intimately associated with, his planetary mortal sons.
PAPER 108 MISSION AND MINISTRY OF THOUGHT ADJUSTERS
2. PREREQUISITES OF ADJUSTER INDWELLING
108:2.1 Though the Adjusters volunteer for service as soon as the personality forecasts have been relayed to Divinington, [a high Paradise sphere] they are not actually assigned until the human subjects make their first moral personality decision. The first moral choice of the human child is automatically indicated in the seventh mind-adjutant and registers instantly, by way of the local universe Creative Spirit, over the universal mind-gravity circuit of the Conjoint Actor in the presence of the Master Spirit of superuniverse jurisdiction, who forthwith dispatches this intelligence to Divinington. Adjusters reach their human subjects on Earth, on the average, just prior to the sixth birthday. In the present generation [around A.D. 1935] it is running five years, ten months, and four days; that is, on the 2,134th day of terrestrial life.
4. RELATION TO OTHER SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES
108:4.2 [Important !] While not subordinate to, co-ordinate with, or apparently related to, the work of the universe of universes, though acting independently in the minds of the children of men, unceasingly do these mysterious presences urge the creatures of their indwelling toward divine ideals, always luring them upward toward the purposes and aims of a future and better life. These Mystery Monitors are continually assisting in the establishment of the spiritual dominion of [our Master Jesus Christ] Michael throughout the universe of Nebadon while mysteriously contributing to the stabilization of the sovereignty of the Ancients of Days in Orvonton. The Adjusters are the will of God, and since the [700,000 active local universe] Supreme Creator children of God also personally embody that same will, it is inevitable that the actions of Adjusters and the Sovereignty of the universe rulers should be mutually interdependent. Though apparently unconnected, the Father presence of the Adjusters and the Father Sovereignty of Michael of Nebadon must be diverse manifestations of the same Divinity. [Yes, Our Universe Creator Father-Son of God Jesus Christ Michael is Eternal and Coordinate Paradise Deity level.]
6. GOD IN MAN
108:6.2 [Important !] No matter what the previous status of the inhabitants of a world, subsequent to the bestowal of a divine Son and after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth upon all humans, [Jesus did this in A.D. 30 -on !!] the Adjusters flock to such a world to indwell the minds of all normal will creatures. Following the completion of the Mission of a Paradise bestowal Son, these Monitors truly become the “Kingdom of Heaven [God's will] within you.” Through the bestowal of the Divine Gifts [the pure Spirit Essence of God within you !!] the Father makes the closest possible approach to sin and evil, for it is literally true that the Adjuster must coexist in the mortal mind even in the very midst of human unrighteousness. The indwelling Adjusters are particularly tormented by those thoughts which are purely sordid and selfish; they are distressed by irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are virtually thwarted in their work by many of man’s foolish animal fears and childish anxieties.
PAPER 109 RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO UNIVERSE CREATURES
109:0.1 The [eternally perfect will of God] Thought Adjusters are the children of the universe career, and indeed the virgin Adjusters must gain experience while mortal creatures grow and develop. As the personality of the human child expands for the struggles of evolutionary existence, so does the Adjuster wax great in the rehearsals of the next [soul reality in the next heaven] stage of ascending life. As the child acquires adaptative versatility for his adult activities through the social and play life of early childhood, so does the indwelling Adjuster achieve skill for the next stage of cosmic life by virtue of the preliminary mortal planning and rehearsing of those activities which have to do with the morontia [soul] career. Human existence constitutes a period of practice which is effectively utilized by the Adjuster in preparing for the increased responsibilities and the greater opportunities of a future life. But the Adjuster’s efforts, while living within you, are not so much concerned with the affairs of temporal life and planetary existence. Today, the Thought Adjusters are, as it were, rehearsing the realities of the universe career in the evolving minds of human beings. [with you as soul and mainly in your super-consciousness.]
PAPER 110 RELATION OF ADJUSTERS TO INDIVIDUAL MORTALS
0.Introduction
110:0.2 As far as I am conversant with the affairs of a universe, I regard the love and devotion of a Thought Adjuster as the most truly divine affection in all creation. The love of the Sons in their ministry to the races is superb, but the devotion of an Adjuster to the individual is touchingly sublime, divinely Fatherlike. The Paradise Father has apparently reserved this form of personal contact with his individual creatures as an exclusive Creator prerogative. And there is nothing in all the universe of universes exactly comparable to the marvelous ministry of these impersonal entities that so fascinatingly indwell the children of the evolutionary planets.
6. THE SEVEN PSYCHIC CIRCLES
110:6.11 As the circles are traversed, the child of material evolution is growing into the mature human of immortal potentiality. The shadowy reality of the embryonic [soul] nature of a seventh circler is giving way to the clearer manifestation of the emerging morontia nature of a local universe citizen. [Yes, humans here are now also baby evolving souls !]
PAPER 111 THE ADJUSTER AND THE SOUL
0.Introduction
111:0.1 The presence of the divine Adjuster in the human mind makes it forever impossible for either science or philosophy to attain a satisfactory comprehension of the evolving soul of the human personality. The morontia soul is the child of the universe and may be really known only through cosmic insight and spiritual discovery.
4. THE INNER LIFE
111:4.6 Snow crystals are always hexagonal in form, but no two are ever alike. Children conform to types, but no two are exactly alike, even in the case of twins. Personality follows types but is always unique. [Your I am of I AM Universal Father Personality gift from I AM is absolutely unique in both time and in all eternity !!]
111:4.9 Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive. How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments, revenge, and bigotries? [Put love, mercy, service to all, truth, beauty and goodness in your thoughts words and deeds; and you, with God's help, will certainly cocreate a robust, spiritualizing soul. If you think of just garbage in your mind, and just garbage will come out ! That is your God-given freewill choice; choose wisely ! Censor what media your children watch and what you watch !]
