Urantia Book Paper 77 The Midway Creatures
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
...
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Paper 77 The Midway Creatures
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Introduction
MOST of the inhabited worlds of Nebadon harbor one or more groups of unique
beings existing on a life-functioning level about midway between those of the
mortals of the realms and of the angelic orders; hence are they called midway
creatures. They appear to be an accident of time, but they occur so
widespreadly and are so valuable as helpers that we have all long since
accepted them as one of the essential orders of our combined planetary
ministry.
On Urantia there function two distinct orders of midwayers: the primary or
senior corps, who came into being back in the days of Dalamatia, and the
secondary or younger group, whose origin dates from the times of Adam.
1. THE PRIMARY MIDWAYERS
The primary midwayers have their genesis in a unique interassociation of the
material and the spiritual on Urantia. We know of the existence of similar
creatures on other worlds and in other systems, but they originated by
dissimilar techniques.
It is well always to bear in mind that the successive bestowals of the Sons of
God on an evolving planet produce marked changes in the spiritual economy of
the realm and sometimes so modify the workings of the interassociation of
spiritual and material agencies on a planet as to create situations indeed
difficult of understanding. The status of the one hundred corporeal members of
Prince Caligastia's staff illustrates just such a unique interassociation: As
ascendant morontia citizens of Jerusem they were supermaterial creatures
without reproductive prerogatives. As descendant planetary ministers on Urantia
they were material sex creatures capable of procreating material offspring (as
some of them later did). What we cannot satisfactorily explain is how these one
hundred could function in the parental role on a supermaterial level, but that
is exactly what happened. A supermaterial (nonsexual) liaison of a male and a
female member of the corporeal staff resulted in the appearance of the
first-born of the primary midwayers.
It was immediately discovered that a creature of this order, midway between the
mortal and angelic levels, would be of great service in carrying on the affairs
of the Prince's headquarters, and each couple of the corporeal staff was
accordingly granted permission to produce a similar being. This effort resulted
in the first group of fifty midway creatures.
After a year of observing the work of this unique group, the Planetary Prince
authorized the reproduction of midwayers without restriction. This plan was
carried out as long as the power to create continued, and the original corps of
50,000 was accordingly brought into being.
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A period of one-half year intervened between the production of each midwayer,
and when one thousand such beings had been born to each couple, no more were
ever forthcoming. And there is no explanation available as to why this power
was exhausted upon the appearance of the one thousandth offspring. No amount of
further experimentation ever resulted in anything but failure.
These creatures constituted the intelligence corps of the Prince's
administration. They ranged far and wide, studying and observing the world
races and rendering other invaluable services to the Prince and his staff in
the work of influencing human society remote from the planetary headquarters.
This regime continued until the tragic days of the planetary rebellion, which
ensnared a little over four fifths of the primary midwayers. The loyal corps
entered the service of the Melchizedek receivers, functioning under the titular
leadership of Van until the days of Adam.
2. THE NODITE RACE
While this is the narrative of the origin, nature, and function of the midway
creatures of Urantia, the kinship between the two orders--primary and
secondary--makes it necessary to interrupt the story of the primary midwayers
at this point in order to follow out the line of descent from the rebel members
of the corporeal staff of Prince Caligastia from the days of the planetary
rebellion to the times of Adam. It was this line of inheritance which, in the
early days of the second garden, furnished one half of the ancestry for the
secondary order of midway creatures.
The physical members of the Prince's staff had been constituted sex creatures
for the purpose of participating in the plan of procreating offspring embodying
the combined qualities of their special order united with those of the selected
stock of the Andon tribes, and all of this was in anticipation of the
subsequent appearance of Adam. The Life Carriers had planned a new type of
mortal embracing the union of the conjoint offspring of the Prince's staff with
the first-generation offspring of Adam and Eve. They had thus projected a plan
envisioning a new order of planetary creatures whom they hoped would become the
teacher-rulers of human society. Such beings were designed for social
sovereignty, not civil sovereignty. But since this project almost completely
miscarried, we shall never know what an aristocracy of benign leadership and
matchless culture Urantia was thus deprived of. For when the corporeal staff
later reproduced, it was subsequent to the rebellion and after they had been
deprived of their connection with the life currents of the system.
The postrebellion era on Urantia witnessed many unusual happenings. A great
civilization--the culture of Dalamatia--was going to pieces. "The Nephilim
(Nodites) were on earth in those days, and when these sons of the gods went in
to the daughters of men and they bore to them, their children were the `mighty
men of old,' the `men of renown."' While hardly "sons of the gods," the staff
and their early descendants were so regarded by the evolutionary mortals of
those distant days; even their stature came to be magnified by tradition. This,
then, is the origin of the well-nigh universal folk tale of the gods who came
down to earth and there with the daughters of men begot an ancient race of
heroes. And all this legend became further confused with the race mixtures of
the later appearing Adamites in the second garden.
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Since the one hundred corporeal members of the Prince's staff carried germ
plasm of the Andonic human strains, it would naturally be expected that, if
they engaged in sexual reproduction, their progeny would altogether resemble
the offspring of other Andonite parents. But when the sixty rebels of the
staff, the followers of Nod, actually engaged in sexual reproduction, their
children proved to be far superior in almost every way to both the Andonite and
the Sangik peoples. This unexpected excellence characterized not only physical
and intellectual qualities but also spiritual capacities.
These mutant traits appearing in the first Nodite generation resulted from
certain changes which had been wrought in the configuration and in the chemical
constituents of the inheritance factors of the Andonic germ plasm. These
changes were caused by the presence in the bodies of the staff members of the
powerful life-maintenance circuits of the Satania system. These life circuits
caused the chromosomes of the specialized Urantia pattern to reorganize more
after the patterns of the standardized Satania specialization of the ordained
Nebadon life manifestation. The technique of this germ plasm metamorphosis by
the action of the system life currents is not unlike those procedures whereby
Urantia scientists modify the germ plasm of plants and animals by the use of X
rays.
Thus did the Nodite peoples arise out of certain peculiar and unexpected
modifications occurring in the life plasm which had been transferred from the
bodies of the Andonite contributors to those of the corporeal staff members by
the Avalon surgeons.
It will be recalled that the one hundred Andonite germ plasm contributors were
in turn made possessors of the organic complement of the tree of life so that
the Satania life currents likewise invested their bodies. The forty-four
modified Andonites who followed the staff into rebellion also mated among
themselves and made a great contribution to the better strains of the Nodite
people.
These two groups, embracing 104 individuals who carried the modified Andonite
germ plasm, constitute the ancestry of the Nodites, the eighth race to appear
on Urantia. And this new feature of human life on Urantia represents another
phase of the outworking of the original plan of utilizing this planet as a
life-modification world, except that this was one of the unforeseen
developments.
The pure-line Nodites were a magnificent race, but they gradually mingled with
the evolutionary peoples of earth, and before long great deterioration had
occurred. Ten thousand years after the rebellion they had lost ground to the
point where their average length of life was little more than that of the
evolutionary races.
When archaeologists dig up the clay-tablet records of the later-day Sumerian
descendants of the Nodites, they discover lists of Sumerian kings running back
for several thousand years; and as these records go further back, the reigns of
the individual kings lengthen from around twenty-five or thirty years up to one
hundred and fifty years and more. This lengthening of the reigns of these older
kings signifies that some of the early Nodite rulers (immediate descendants of
the Prince's staff) did live longer than their later-day successors and also
indicates an effort to stretch the dynasties back to Dalamatia.
The records of such long-lived individuals are also due to the confusion of
months and years as time periods. This may also be observed in the Biblical
genealogy of Abraham and in the early records of the Chinese. The confusion of
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the twenty-eight-day month, or season, with the later introduced year of more
than three hundred and fifty days is responsible for the traditions of such
long human lives. There are records of a man who lived over nine hundred
"years." This period represents not quite seventy years, and such lives were
regarded for ages as very long, "threescore years and ten" as such a life span
was later designated.
The reckoning of time by the twenty-eight-day month persisted long after the
days of Adam. But when the Egyptians undertook to reform the calendar, about
seven thousand years ago, they did it with great accuracy, introducing the year
of 365 days.
3. THE TOWER OF BABEL
After the submergence of Dalamatia the Nodites moved north and east, presently
founding the new city of Dilmun as their racial and cultural headquarters. And
about fifty thousand years after the death of Nod, when the offspring of the
Prince's staff had become too numerous to find subsistence in the lands
immediately surrounding their new city of Dilmun, and after they had reached
out to intermarry with the Andonite and Sangik tribes adjoining their borders,
it occurred to their leaders that something should be done to preserve their
racial unity. Accordingly a council of the tribes was called, and after much
deliberation the plan of Bablot, a descendant of Nod, was indorsed.
Bablot proposed to erect a pretentious temple of racial glorification at the
center of their then occupied territory. This temple was to have a tower the
like of which the world had never seen. It was to be a monumental memorial to
their passing greatness. There were many who wished to have this monument
erected in Dilmun, but others contended that such a great structure should be
placed a safe distance from the dangers of the sea, remembering the traditions
of the engulfment of their first capital, Dalamatia.
Bablot planned that the new buildings should become the nucleus of the future
center of the Nodite culture and civilization. His counsel finally prevailed,
and construction was started in accordance with his plans. The new city was to
be named Bablot after the architect and builder of the tower. This location
later became known as Bablod and eventually as Babel.
But the Nodites were still somewhat divided in sentiment as to the plans and
purposes of this undertaking. Neither were their leaders altogether agreed
concerning either construction plans or usage of the buildings after they
should be completed. After four and one-half years of work a great dispute
arose about the object and motive for the erection of the tower. The
contentions became so bitter that all work stopped. The food carriers spread
the news of the dissension, and large numbers of the tribes began to forgather
at the building site. Three differing views were propounded as to the purpose
of building the tower.
1. The largest group, almost one half, desired to see the tower built as a
memorial of Nodite history and racial superiority. They thought it ought to be
a great and imposing structure which would challenge the admiration of all
future generations.
2. The next largest faction wanted the tower designed to commemorate the Dilmun
culture. They foresaw that Bablot would become a great center of commerce, art,
and manufacture.
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3. The smallest and minority contingent held that the erection of the tower
presented an opportunity for making atonement for the folly of their
progenitors in participating in the Caligastia rebellion. They maintained that
the tower should be devoted to the worship of the Father of all, that the whole
purpose of the new city should be to take the place of Dalamatia--to function
as the cultural and religious center for the surrounding barbarians.
The religious group were promptly voted down. The majority rejected the
teaching that their ancestors had been guilty of rebellion; they resented such
a racial stigma. Having disposed of one of the three angles to the dispute and
failing to settle the other two by debate, they fell to fighting. The
religionists, the noncombatants, fled to their homes in the south, while their
fellows fought until well-nigh obliterated.
About twelve thousand years ago a second attempt to erect the tower of Babel
was made. The mixed races of the Andites (Nodites and Adamites) undertook to
raise a new temple on the ruins of the first structure, but there was not
sufficient support for the enterprise; it fell of its own pretentious weight.
This region was long known as the land of Babel.
4. NODITE CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION
The dispersion of the Nodites was an immediate result of the internecine
conflict over the tower of Babel. This internal war greatly reduced the numbers
of the purer Nodites and was in many ways responsible for their failure to
establish a great pre-Adamic civilization. From this time on Nodite culture
declined for over one hundred and twenty thousand years until it was upstepped
by Adamic infusion. But even in the times of Adam the Nodites were still an
able people. Many of their mixed descendants were numbered among the Garden
builders, and several of Van's group captains were Nodites. Some of the most
capable minds serving on Adam's staff were of this race.
Three out of the four great Nodite centers were established immediately
following the Bablot conflict:
1. The western or Syrian Nodites. The remnants of the nationalistic or racial
memorialists journeyed northward, uniting with the Andonites to found the later
Nodite centers to the northwest of Mesopotamia. This was the largest group of
the dispersing Nodites, and they contributed much to the later appearing
Assyrian stock.
2. The eastern or Elamite Nodites. The culture and commerce advocates migrated
in large numbers eastward into Elam and there united with the mixed Sangik
tribes. The Elamites of thirty to forty thousand years ago had become largely
Sangik in nature, although they continued to maintain a civilization superior
to that of the surrounding barbarians.
After the establishment of the second garden it was customary to allude to this
near-by Nodite settlement as "the land of Nod"; and during the long period of
relative peace between this Nodite group and the Adamites, the two races were
greatly blended, for it became more and more the custom for the Sons of God
(the Adamites) to intermarry with the daughters of men (the Nodites).
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3. The central or pre-Sumerian Nodites. A small group at the mouth of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers maintained more of their racial integrity. They
persisted for thousands of years and eventually furnished the Nodite ancestry
which blended with the Adamites to found the Sumerian peoples of historic
times.
And all this explains how the Sumerians appeared so suddenly and mysteriously
on the stage of action in Mesopotamia. Investigators will never be able to
trace out and follow these tribes back to the beginning of the Sumerians, who
had their origin two hundred thousand years ago after the submergence of
Dalamatia. Without a trace of origin elsewhere in the world, these ancient
tribes suddenly loom upon the horizon of civilization with a full-grown and
superior culture, embracing temples, metalwork, agriculture, animals, pottery,
weaving, commercial law, civil codes, religious ceremonial, and an old system
of writing. At the beginning of the historical era they had long since lost the
alphabet of Dalamatia, having adopted the peculiar writing system originating
in Dilmun. The Sumerian language, though virtually lost to the world, was not
Semitic; it had much in common with the so-called Aryan tongues.
The elaborate records left by the Sumerians describe the site of a remarkable
settlement which was located on the Persian Gulf near the earlier city of
Dilmun. The Egyptians called this city of ancient glory Dilmat, while the later
Adamized Sumerians confused both the first and second Nodite cities with
Dalamatia and called all three Dilmun. And already have archaeologists found
these ancient Sumerian clay tablets which tell of this earthly paradise "where
the Gods first blessed mankind with the example of civilized and cultured
life." And these tablets, descriptive of Dilmun, the paradise of men and God,
are now silently resting on the dusty shelves of many museums.
The Sumerians well knew of the first and second Edens but, despite extensive
intermarriage with the Adamites, continued to regard the garden dwellers to the
north as an alien race. Sumerian pride in the more ancient Nodite culture led
them to ignore these later vistas of glory in favor of the grandeur and
paradisiacal traditions of the city of Dilmun.
4. The northern Nodites and Amadonites--the Vanites. This group arose prior to
the Bablot conflict. These northernmost Nodites were descendants of those who
had forsaken the leadership of Nod and his successors for that of Van and
Amadon.
Some of the early associates of Van subsequently settled about the shores of
the lake which still bears his name, and their traditions grew up about this
locality. Ararat became their sacred mountain, having much the same meaning to
later-day Vanites that Sinai had to the Hebrews. Ten thousand years ago the
Vanite ancestors of the Assyrians taught that their moral law of seven
commandments had been given to Van by the Gods upon Mount Ararat. They firmly
believed that Van and his associate Amadon were taken alive from the planet
while they were up on the mountain engaged in worship.
Mount Ararat was the sacred mountain of northern Mesopotamia, and since much of
your tradition of these ancient times was acquired in connection with the
Babylonian story of the flood, it is not surprising that Mount Ararat and its
region were woven into the later Jewish story of Noah and the universal flood.
About 35,000 B.C. Adamson visited one of the easternmost of the old Vanite
settlements to found his center of civilization.
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5. ADAMSON AND RATTA
Having delineated the Nodite antecedents of the ancestry of the secondary
midwayers, this narrative should now give consideration to the Adamic half of
their ancestry, for the secondary midwayers are also the grandchildren of
Adamson, the first-born of the violet race of Urantia.
Adamson was among that group of the children of Adam and Eve who elected to
remain on earth with their father and mother. Now this eldest son of Adam had
often heard from Van and Amadon the story of their highland home in the north,
and sometime after the establishment of the second garden he determined to go
in search of this land of his youthful dreams.
Adamson was 120 years old at this time and had been the father of thirty-two
pure-line children of the first garden. He wanted to remain with his parents
and assist them in upbuilding the second garden, but he was greatly disturbed
by the loss of his mate and their children, who had all elected to go to
Edentia along with those other Adamic children who chose to become wards of the
Most Highs.
Adamson would not desert his parents on Urantia, he was disinclined to flee
from hardship or danger, but he found the associations of the second garden far
from satisfying. He did much to forward the early activities of defense and
construction but decided to leave for the north at the earliest opportunity.
And though his departure was wholly pleasant, Adam and Eve were much grieved to
lose their eldest son, to have him go out into a strange and hostile world, as
they feared, never to return.
A company of twenty-seven followed Adamson northward in quest of these people
of his childhood fantasies. In a little over three years Adamson's party
actually found the object of their adventure, and among these people he
discovered a wonderful and beautiful woman, twenty years old, who claimed to be
the last pure-line descendant of the Prince's staff. This woman, Ratta, said
that her ancestors were all descendants of two of the fallen staff of the
Prince. She was the last of her race, having no living brothers or sisters. She
had about decided not to mate, had about made up her mind to die without issue,
but she lost her heart to the majestic Adamson. And when she heard the story of
Eden, how the predictions of Van and Amadon had really come to pass, and as she
listened to the recital of the Garden default, she was encompassed with but a
single thought--to marry this son and heir of Adam. And quickly the idea grew
upon Adamson. In a little more than three months they were married.
Adamson and Ratta had a family of sixty-seven children. They gave origin to a
great line of the world's leadership, but they did something more. It should be
remembered that both of these beings were really superhuman. Every fourth child
born to them was of a unique order. It was often invisible. Never in the
world's history had such a thing occurred. Ratta was greatly perturbed--even
superstitious--but Adamson well knew of the existence of the primary midwayers,
and he concluded that something similar was transpiring before his eyes. When
the second strangely behaving offspring arrived, he decided to mate them, since
one was male and the other female, and this is the origin of the secondary
order of midwayers. Within one hundred years, before this phenomenon ceased,
almost two thousand were brought into being.
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Adamson lived for 396 years. Many times he returned to visit his father and
mother. Every seven years he and Ratta journeyed south to the second garden,
and meanwhile the midwayers kept him informed regarding the welfare of his
people. During Adamson's life they did great service in upbuilding a new and
independent world center for truth and righteousness.
Adamson and Ratta thus had at their command this corps of marvelous helpers,
who labored with them throughout their long lives to assist in the propagation
of advanced truth and in the spread of higher standards of spiritual,
intellectual, and physical living. And the results of this effort at world
betterment never did become fully eclipsed by subsequent retrogressions.
The Adamsonites maintained a high culture for almost seven thousand years from
the times of Adamson and Ratta. Later on they became admixed with the
neighboring Nodites and Andonites and were also included among the "mighty men
of old." And some of the advances of that age persisted to become a latent part
of the cultural potential which later blossomed into European civilization.
This center of civilization was situated in the region east of the southern end
of the Caspian Sea, near the Kopet Dagh. A short way up in the foothills of
Turkestan are the vestiges of what was onetime the Adamsonite headquarters of
the violet race. In these highland sites, situated in a narrow and ancient
fertile belt lying in the lower foothills of the Kopet range, there
successively arose at various periods four diverse cultures respectively
fostered by four different groups of Adamson's descendants. It was the second
of these groups which migrated westward to Greece and the islands of the
Mediterranean. The residue of Adamson's descendants migrated north and west to
enter Europe with the blended stock of the last Andite wave coming out of
Mesopotamia, and they were also numbered among the Andite-Aryan invaders of
India.
6. THE SECONDARY MIDWAYERS
While the primary midwayers had a well-nigh superhuman origin, the secondary
order are the offspring of the pure Adamic stock united with a humanized
descendant of ancestors common to the parentage of the senior corps.
Among the children of Adamson there were just sixteen of the peculiar
progenitors of the secondary midwayers. These unique children were equally
divided as regards sex, and each couple was capable of producing a secondary
midwayer every seventy days by a combined technique of sex and nonsex liaison.
And such a phenomenon was never possible on earth before that time, nor has it
ever occurred since.
These sixteen children lived and died (except for their peculiarities) as
mortals of the realm, but their electrically energized offspring live on and
on, not being subject to the limitations of mortal flesh.
Each of the eight couples eventually produced 248 midwayers, and thus did the
original secondary corps--1,984 in number--come into existence. There are eight
subgroups of secondary midwayers. They are designated as A-B-C the first,
second, third, and so on. And then there are D-E-F the first, second, and so
on.
After the default of Adam the primary midwayers returned to the service of the
Melchizedek receivers, while the secondary group were attached to the Adamson
center until his death. Thirty-three of these secondary midwayers, the
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chiefs of their organization at the death of Adamson, endeavored to swing the
whole order over to the service of the Melchizedeks, thus effecting a liaison
with the primary corps. But failing to accomplish this, they deserted their
companions and went over in a body to the service of the planetary receivers.
After the death of Adamson the remainder of the secondary midwayers became a
strange, unorganized, and unattached influence on Urantia. From that time to
the days of Machiventa Melchizedek they led an irregular and unorganized
existence. They were partially brought under control by this Melchizedek but
were still productive of much mischief up to the days of Christ Michael. And
during his sojourn on earth they all made final decisions as to their future
destiny, the loyal majority then enlisting under the leadership of the primary
midwayers.
7. THE REBEL MIDWAYERS
The majority of the primary midwayers went into sin at the time of the Lucifer
rebellion. When the devastation of the planetary rebellion was reckoned up,
among other losses it was discovered that of the original 50,000, 40,119 had
joined the Caligastia secession.
The original number of secondary midwayers was 1,984, and of these 873 failed
to align themselves with the rule of Michael and were duly interned in
connection with the planetary adjudication of Urantia on the day of Pentecost.
No one can forecast the future of these fallen creatures.
Both groups of rebel midwayers are now held in custody awaiting the final
adjudication of the affairs of the system rebellion. But they did many strange
things on earth prior to the inauguration of the present planetary
dispensation.
These disloyal midwayers were able to reveal themselves to mortal eyes under
certain circumstances, and especially was this true of the associates of
Beelzebub, the leader of the apostate secondary midwayers. But these unique
creatures must not be confused with certain of the rebel cherubim and seraphim
who also were on earth up to the time of Christ's death and resurrection. Some
of the older writers designated these rebellious midway creatures as evil
spirits and demons, and the apostate seraphim as evil angels.
On no world can evil spirits possess any mortal mind subsequent to the life of
a Paradise bestowal Son. But before the days of Christ Michael on
Urantia--before the universal coming of the Thought Adjusters and the pouring
out of the Master's spirit upon all flesh--these rebel midwayers were actually
able to influence the minds of certain inferior mortals and somewhat to control
their actions. This was accomplished in much the same way as the loyal midway
creatures function when they serve as efficient contact guardians of the human
minds of the Urantia reserve corps of destiny at those times when the Adjuster
is, in effect, detached from the personality during a season of contact with
superhuman intelligences.
It is no mere figure of speech when the record states: "And they brought to Him
all sorts of sick peoples, those who were possessed by devils and those who
were lunatics." Jesus knew and recognized the difference between insanity and
demoniacal possession, although these states were greatly confused in the minds
of those who lived in his day and generation.
Even prior to Pentecost no rebel spirit could dominate a normal human mind, and
since that day even the weak minds of inferior mortals are free from
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such possibilities. The supposed casting out of devils since the arrival of the
Spirit of Truth has been a matter of confounding a belief in demoniacal
possession with hysteria, insanity, and feeble-mindedness. But just because
Michael's bestowal has forever liberated all human minds on Urantia from the
possibility of demoniacal possession, do not imagine that such was not a
reality in former ages.
The entire group of rebel midwayers is at present held prisoner by order of the
Most Highs of Edentia. No more do they roam this world on mischief bent.
Regardless of the presence of the Thought Adjusters, the pouring out of the
Spirit of Truth upon all flesh forever made it impossible for disloyal spirits
of any sort or description ever again to invade even the most feeble of human
minds. Since the day of Pentecost there never again can be such a thing as
demoniacal possession.
8. THE UNITED MIDWAYERS
At the last adjudication of this world, when Michael removed the slumbering
survivors of time, the midway creatures were left behind, left to assist in the
spiritual and semispiritual work on the planet. They now function as a single
corps, embracing both orders and numbering 10,992. The United Midwayers of
Urantia are at present governed alternately by the senior member of each order.
This regime has obtained since their amalgamation into one group shortly after
Pentecost.
The members of the older or primary order are generally known by numerals; they
are often given names such as 1-2-3 the first, 4-5-6 the first, and so on. On
Urantia the Adamic midwayers are designated alphabetically in order to
distinguish them from the numerical designation of the primary midwayers.
Both orders are nonmaterial beings as regards nutrition and energy intake, but
they partake of many human traits and are able to enjoy and follow your humor
as well as your worship. When attached to mortals, they enter into the spirit
of human work, rest, and play. But midwayers do not sleep, neither do they
possess powers of procreation. In a certain sense the secondary group are
differentiated along the lines of maleness and femaleness, often being spoken
of as "he" or "she." They often work together in such pairs.
Midwayers are not men, neither are they angels, but secondary midwayers are, in
nature, nearer man than angel; they are, in a way, of your races and are,
therefore, very understanding and sympathetic in their contact with human
beings; they are invaluable to the seraphim in their work for and with the
various races of mankind, and both orders are indispensable to the seraphim who
serve as personal guardians to mortals.
The United Midwayers of Urantia are organized for service with the planetary
seraphim in accordance with innate endowments and acquired skills, in the
following groups:
1. Midway messengers. This group bear names; they are a small corps and are of
great assistance on an evolutionary world in the service of quick and reliable
personal communication.
2. Planetary sentinels. Midwayers are the guardians, the sentinels, of the
worlds of space. They perform the important duties of observers for all the
numerous phenomena and types of communication which are of import to the
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supernatural beings of the realm. They patrol the invisible spirit realm of the
planet.
3. Contact personalities. In the contacts made with the mortal beings of the
material worlds, such as with the subject through whom these communications
were transmitted, the midway creatures are always employed. They are an
essential factor in such liaisons of the spiritual and the material levels.
4. Progress helpers. These are the more spiritual of the midway creatures, and
they are distributed as assistants to the various orders of seraphim who
function in special groups on the planet.
Midwayers vary greatly in their abilities to make contact with the seraphim
above and with their human cousins below. It is exceedingly difficult, for
instance, for the primary midwayers to make direct contact with material
agencies. They are considerably nearer the angelic type of being and are
therefore usually assigned to working with, and ministering to, the spiritual
forces resident on the planet. They act as companions and guides for celestial
visitors and student sojourners, whereas the secondary creatures are almost
exclusively attached to the ministry of the material beings of the realm.
The 1,111 loyal secondary midwayers are engaged in important missions on earth.
As compared with their primary associates, they are decidedly material. They
exist just outside the range of mortal vision and possess sufficient latitude
of adaptation to make, at will, physical contact with what humans call
"material things." These unique creatures have certain definite powers over the
things of time and space, not excepting the beasts of the realm.
Many of the more literal phenomena ascribed to angels have been performed by
the secondary midway creatures. When the early teachers of the gospel of Jesus
were thrown into prison by the ignorant religious leaders of that day, an
actual "angel of the Lord" "by night opened the prison doors and brought them
forth." But in the case of Peter's deliverance after the killing of James by
Herod's order, it was a secondary midwayer who performed the work ascribed to
an angel.
Their chief work today is that of unperceived personal-liaison associates of
those men and women who constitute the planetary reserve corps of destiny. It
was the work of this secondary group, ably seconded by certain of the primary
corps, that brought about the co-ordination of personalities and circumstances
on Urantia which finally induced the planetary celestial supervisors to
initiate those petitions that resulted in the granting of the mandates making
possible the series of revelations of which this presentation is a part. But it
should be made clear that the midway creatures are not involved in the sordid
performances taking place under the general designation of "spiritualism." The
midwayers at present on Urantia, all of whom are of honorable standing, are not
connected with the phenomena of so-called "mediumship"; and they do not,
ordinarily, permit humans to witness their sometimes necessary physical
activities or other contacts with the material world, as they are perceived by
human senses.
9. THE PERMANENT CITIZENS OF URANTIA
Midwayers may be regarded as the first group of the permanent inhabitants to be
found on the various orders of worlds throughout the universes in contrast
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with evolutionary ascenders like the mortal creatures and the angelic hosts.
Such permanent citizens are encountered at various points in the Paradise
ascent.
Unlike the various orders of celestial beings who are assigned to ministeron a
planet, the midwayers live on an inhabited world. The seraphim come and go, but
the midway creatures remain and will remain, albeit they are nonetheless
ministers for being natives of the planet, and they provide the one continuing
regime which harmonizes and connects the changing administrations of the
seraphic hosts.
As actual citizens of Urantia, the midwayers have a kinship interest in the
destiny of this sphere. They are a determined association, persistently working
for the progress of their native planet. Their determination is suggested by
the motto of their order: "What the United Midwayers undertake, the United
Midwayers do."
Although their ability to traverse the energy circuits makes planetary
departure feasible to any midwayer, they have individually pledged themselves
not to leave the planet prior to their sometime release by the universe
authorities. Midwayers are anchored on a planet until the ages of settled light
and life. With the exception of 1-2-3 the first, no loyal midway creatures have
ever departed from Urantia.
1-2-3 the first, the eldest of the primary order, was released from immediate
planetary duties shortly after Pentecost. This noble midwayer stood steadfast
with Van and Amadon during the tragic days of the planetary rebellion, and his
fearless leadership was instrumental in reducing the casualties in his order.
He serves at present on Jerusem as a member of the twenty-four counselors,
having already functioned as governor general of Urantia once since Pentecost.
Midwayers are planet bound, but much as mortals talk with travelers from afar
and thus learn about remote places on the planet, so do midwayers converse with
celestial travelers to learn about the far places of the universe. So do they
become conversant with this system and universe, even with Orvonton and its
sister creations, and so do they prepare themselves for citizenship on the
higher levels of creature existence.
While the midwayers were brought into existence fully developed--experiencing
no period of growth or development from immaturity--they never cease to grow in
wisdom and experience. Like mortals they are evolutionary creatures, and they
have a culture which is a bona fide evolutionary attainment. There are many
great minds and mighty spirits among the Urantia midway corps.
In the larger aspect the civilization of Urantia is the joint product of the
Urantia mortals and the Urantia midwayers, and this is true despite the present
differential between the two levels of culture, a differential which will not
be compensated prior to the ages of light and life.
The midway culture, being the product of an immortal planetary citizenry, is
relatively immune to those temporal vicissitudes which beset human
civilization. The generations of men forget; the corps of midwayers remembers,
and that memory is the treasure house of the traditions of your inhabited
world. Thus does the culture of a planet remain ever present on that planet,
and in proper circumstances such treasured memories of past events are made
available, even as the story of the life and teachings of Jesus has been given
by the midwayers of Urantia to their cousins in the flesh.
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Midwayers are the skillful ministers who compensate that gap between the
material and spiritual affairs of Urantia which appeared upon the death of Adam
and Eve. They are likewise your elder brethren, comrades in the long struggle
to attain a settled status of light and life on Urantia. The United Midwayers
are a rebellion-tested corps, and they will faithfully enact their part in
planetary evolution until this world attains the goal of the ages, until that
distant day when in fact peace does reign on earth and in truth is there good
will in the hearts of men.
Because of the valuable work performed by these midwayers, we have concluded
that they are a truly essential part of the spirit economy of the realms. And
where rebellion has not marred a planet's affairs, they are of still greater
assistance to the seraphim.
The entire organization of high spirits, angelic hosts, and midway fellows is
enthusiastically devoted to the furtherance of the Paradise plan for the
progressive ascension and perfection attainment of evolutionary mortals, one of
the supernal businesses of the universe--the superb survival plan of bringing
God down to man and then, by a sublime sort of partnership, carrying man up to
God and on to eternity of service and divinity of attainment--alike for mortal
and midwayer.
[Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael
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