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Finally...humans become egocentric enough to fashion the gods after themselves and give the gods all manner of human traits, both good ones and bad.

6. Worship of Man

85:6.1 (948.1) Having worshiped everything else on the face of the earth and in the heavens above, man has not hesitated to honor himself with such adoration. The simple-minded savage makes no clear distinction between beasts, men, and gods.

85:6.2 (948.2) Early man regarded all unusual persons as superhuman, and he so feared such beings as to hold them in reverential awe; to some degree he literally worshiped them. Even having twins was regarded as being either very lucky or very unlucky. Lunatics, epileptics, and the feeble-minded were often worshiped by their normal-minded fellows, who believed that such abnormal beings were indwelt by the gods. Priests, kings, and prophets were worshiped; the holy men of old were looked upon as inspired by the deities.

85:6.3 (948.3) Tribal chiefs died and were deified. Later, distinguished souls passed on and were sainted. Unaided evolution never originated gods higher than the glorified, exalted, and evolved spirits of deceased humans. In early evolution religion creates its own gods. In the course of revelation the Gods formulate religion. Evolutionary religion creates its gods in the image and likeness of mortal man; revelatory religion seeks to evolve and transform mortal man into the image and likeness of God.

85:6.4 (948.4) The ghost gods, who are of supposed human origin, should be distinguished from the nature gods, for nature worship did evolve a pantheon—nature spirits elevated to the position of gods. The nature cults continued to develop along with the later appearing ghost cults, and each exerted an influence upon the other. Many religious systems embraced a dual concept of deity, nature gods and ghost gods; in some theologies these concepts are confusingly intertwined, as is illustrated by Thor, a ghost hero who was also master of the lightning.

85:6.5 (948.5) But the worship of man by man reached its height when temporal rulers commanded such veneration from their subjects and, in substantiation of such demands, claimed to have descended from deity.
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fanofVan wrote:
Finally...humans become egocentric enough to fashion the gods after themselves and give the gods all manner of human traits, both good ones and bad.


Now I get it. That's why you said:


fanofVan wrote:
The UB says all people are bisexual.
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nodAmanaV wrote:
fanofVan wrote:
Finally...humans become egocentric enough to fashion the gods after themselves and give the gods all manner of human traits, both good ones and bad.


Now I get it. That's why you said "the UB says all people are bisexual".


It is??? You get "it"? What's "it" Enno?

Boy that came out of left field...and without any context!

Hmmmmm…..the word "bisexuality" occurs 4 times in 3 quotes in the UB. I posted those quotes in the topic "Evolution" (page 13, dated May 14-15, 2020):

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5584&start=180

There you denied the UB quotes existed, even though they were posted.

Here's the text again:

82:0.1 (913.1) MARRIAGE—mating—grows out of bisexuality. Marriage is man’s reactional adjustment to such bisexuality, while the family life is the sum total resulting from all such evolutionary and adaptative adjustments. ….

83:1.1 (922.4) Marriage is society’s mechanism designed to regulate and control those many human relations which arise out of the physical fact of bisexuality.....

87:5.2 (962.3) …. And as marriage arose to meet the demands of bisexuality, so did religious organization evolve in response to the belief in higher spirit forces and spiritual beings. ….

And my reply to your challenge and claim and denial of the text above:

"To be more accurate, I should have said the UB says the human species is or was bisexual? Is there a difference in bisexual and bisexuality? I tend to the opinion that modern people are also bisexual....but most of us tend to restrain and redirect such sexuality within certain social "norms" and mores that are better suited for procreation and the protection of the family unit. Social deviance is defined less by what may or may not be deviant from biological norms but is contrary to social norms as determined by evolutionary forces and universal patterns as presented by the Material Sons and Daughters."

And:

"A brief study of the term by Google search does not offer many different definitions to consider, and research does tend to support the text posted. Sexuality appears very diverse historically when unconstrained by mores and taboos. Bisexuality certainly has many historical reference and cultural acceptance as the behavioral norm in many cultures ...including Greek and Roman and even more modern.

An early 20th century dictionary definition might be helpful. I think the authors would have used a different term to signify sexual duality of the species...the male/female differential. Other text in Paper 84 (previously posted above)clearly discusses the duality or female/male distinctions."

84:6.3 (938.7) Male and female are, practically regarded, two distinct varieties of the same species living in close and intimate association.Their viewpoints and entire life reactions are essentially different; they are wholly incapable of full and real comprehension of each other.Complete understanding between the sexes is not attainable.

"I have wondered about the fact that all/each person seems to exhibit unique and personal male AND female traits in different combinations. There are very masculine males and very feminine females but along the spectrum of sexuality thrrr are also very feminent males and masculine females and therr are those in between, the more emotional and sensitive males and more logical and lineal females.

It is not easy to pigeon hole human character into simplistic definitions of male and female "traits", or is not according to my own observation and study.

Human sexuality is a well covered topic in the UB. It will definitely challenge the squemish or intolerant reader who approaches the topic with strict personal mores and taboos. Such modern social mores are important to personal and planetary evolution however as the Papers clearly teach."

82:1.10 (914.6) No human emotion or impulse, when unbridled and overindulged, can produce so much harm and sorrow as this powerful sex urge. Intelligent submission of this impulse to the regulations of society is the supreme test of the actuality of any civilization. Self-control, more and more self-control, is the ever-increasing demand of advancing mankind. Secrecy, insincerity, and hypocrisy may obscure sex problems, but they do not provide solutions, nor do they advance ethics.

2. The Restrictive Taboos

82:2.1 (914.7) The story of the evolution of marriage is simply the history of sex control through the pressure of social, religious, and civil restrictions. Nature hardly recognizes individuals; it takes no cognizance of so-called morals; it is only and exclusively interested in the reproduction of the species. Nature compellingly insists on reproduction but indifferently leaves the consequential problems to be solved by society, thus creating an ever-present and major problem for evolutionary mankind. This social conflict consists in the unending war between basic instincts and evolving ethics.

82:2.2 (914. Among the early races there was little or no regulation of the relations of the sexes. Because of this sex license, no prostitution existed. Today, the Pygmies and other backward groups have no marriage institution; a study of these peoples reveals the simple mating customs followed by primitive races. But all ancient peoples should always be studied and judged in the light of the moral standards of the mores of their own times.

Anything else Enno/nod???? :roll:

8) Bradly


Last edited by fanofVan on Tue May 19, 2020 8:10 am +0000, edited 6 times in total.

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The evolution of religion begins with the prodding urges of the Spirit Adjutant of Worship circuit in mortal mind.


7. The Adjutants of Worship and Wisdom

85:7.1 (948.6) Nature worship may seem to have arisen naturally and spontaneously in the minds of primitive men and women, and so it did; but there was operating all this time in these same primitive minds the sixth adjutant spirit, which had been bestowed upon these peoples as a directing influence of this phase of human evolution. And this spirit was constantly stimulating the worship urge of the human species, no matter how primitive its first manifestations might be. The spirit of worship gave definite origin to the human impulse to worship, notwithstanding that animal fear motivated the expression of worshipfulness, and that its early practice became centered upon objects of nature.

85:7.2 (948.7) You must remember that feeling, not thinking, was the guiding and controlling influence in all evolutionary development. To the primitive mind there is little difference between fearing, shunning, honoring, and worshiping.

85:7.3 (948.8) When the worship urge is admonished and directed by wisdom—meditative and experiential thinking—it then begins to develop into the phenomenon of real religion. When the seventh adjutant spirit, the spirit of wisdom, achieves effective ministration, then in worship man begins to turn away from nature and natural objects to the God of nature and to the eternal Creator of all things natural.
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Paper 86

Early Evolution of Religion

86:0.1 (950.1) THE evolution of religion from the preceding and primitive worship urge is not dependent on revelation. The normal functioning of the human mind under the directive influence of the sixth and seventh mind-adjutants of universal spirit bestowal is wholly sufficient to insure such development.

86:0.2 (950.2) Man’s earliest prereligious fear of the forces of nature gradually became religious as nature became personalized, spiritized, and eventually deified in human consciousness. Religion of a primitive type was therefore a natural biologic consequence of the psychologic inertia of evolving animal minds after such minds had once entertained concepts of the supernatural.

1. Chance: Good Luck and Bad Luck

86:1.1 (950.3) Aside from the natural worship urge, early evolutionary religion had its roots of origin in the human experiences of chance—so-called luck, commonplace happenings. Primitive man was a food hunter. The results of hunting must ever vary, and this gives certain origin to those experiences which man interprets as good luck and bad luck. Mischance was a great factor in the lives of men and women who lived constantly on the ragged edge of a precarious and harassed existence.

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Anxiety, fear, real and invented suffering, the great mysteries of life....all give confirming evidence of the supernatural. Such primitive superstitions open the door to the evolution of personal religion and social mythology.

86:1.2 (950.4) The limited intellectual horizon of the savage so concentrates the attention upon chance that luck becomes a constant factor in his life. Primitive Urantians struggled for existence, not for a standard of living; they lived lives of peril in which chance played an important role. The constant dread of unknown and unseen calamity hung over these savages as a cloud of despair which effectively eclipsed every pleasure; they lived in constant dread of doing something that would bring bad luck. Superstitious savages always feared a run of good luck; they viewed such good fortune as a certain harbinger of calamity.

86:1.3 (950.5) This ever-present dread of bad luck was paralyzing. Why work hard and reap bad luck—nothing for something—when one might drift along and encounter good luck—something for nothing? Unthinking men forget good luck—take it for granted—but they painfully remember bad luck.

86:1.4 (950.6) Early man lived in uncertainty and in constant fear of chance—bad luck. Life was an exciting game of chance; existence was a gamble. It is no wonder that partially civilized people still believe in chance and evince lingering predispositions to gambling. Primitive man alternated between two potent interests: the passion of getting something for nothing and the fear of getting nothing for something. And this gamble of existence was the main interest and the supreme fascination of the early savage mind.

86:1.5 (951.1) The later herders held the same views of chance and luck, while the still later agriculturists were increasingly conscious that crops were immediately influenced by many things over which man had little or no control. The farmer found himself the victim of drought, floods, hail, storms, pests, and plant diseases, as well as heat and cold. And as all of these natural influences affected individual prosperity, they were regarded as good luck or bad luck.

86:1.6 (951.2) This notion of chance and luck strongly pervaded the philosophy of all ancient peoples. Even in recent times in the Wisdom of Solomon it is said: “I returned and saw that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but fate and chance befall them all. For man knows not his fate; as fishes are taken in an evil net, and as birds are caught in a snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly upon them.”

2. The Personification of Chance

86:2.1 (951.3) Anxiety was a natural state of the savage mind. When men and women fall victims to excessive anxiety, they are simply reverting to the natural estate of their far-distant ancestors; and when anxiety becomes actually painful, it inhibits activity and unfailingly institutes evolutionary changes and biologic adaptations. Pain and suffering are essential to progressive evolution.
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86:2.2 (951.4) The struggle for life is so painful that certain backward tribes even yet howl and lament over each new sunrise. Primitive man constantly asked, “Who is tormenting me?” Not finding a material source for his miseries, he settled upon a spirit explanation. And so was religion born of the fear of the mysterious, the awe of the unseen, and the dread of the unknown. Nature fear thus became a factor in the struggle for existence first because of chance and then because of mystery.

86:2.3 (951.5) The primitive mind was logical but contained few ideas for intelligent association; the savage mind was uneducated, wholly unsophisticated. If one event followed another, the savage considered them to be cause and effect. What civilized man regards as superstition was just plain ignorance in the savage. Mankind has been slow to learn that there is not necessarily any relationship between purposes and results. Human beings are only just beginning to realize that the reactions of existence appear between acts and their consequences. The savage strives to personalize everything intangible and abstract, and thus both nature and chance become personalized as ghosts—spirits—and later on as gods.

86:2.4 (951.6) Man naturally tends to believe that which he deems best for him, that which is in his immediate or remote interest; self-interest largely obscures logic. The difference between the minds of savage and civilized men is more one of content than of nature, of degree rather than of quality.

86:2.5 (951.7) But to continue to ascribe things difficult of comprehension to supernatural causes is nothing less than a lazy and convenient way of avoiding all forms of intellectual hard work. Luck is merely a term coined to cover the inexplicable in any age of human existence; it designates those phenomena which men are unable or unwilling to penetrate. Chance is a word which signifies that man is too ignorant or too indolent to determine causes. Men regard a natural occurrence as an accident or as bad luck only when they are destitute of curiosity and imagination, when the races lack initiative and adventure. Exploration of the phenomena of life sooner or later destroys man’s belief in chance, luck, and so-called accidents, substituting therefor a universe of law and order wherein all effects are preceded by definite causes. Thus is the fear of existence replaced by the joy of living.

86:2.6 (952.1) The savage looked upon all nature as alive, as possessed by something. Civilized man still kicks and curses those inanimate objects which get in his way and bump him. Primitive man never regarded anything as accidental; always was everything intentional. To primitive man the domain of fate, the function of luck, the spirit world, was just as unorganized and haphazard as was primitive society. Luck was looked upon as the whimsical and temperamental reaction of the spirit world; later on, as the humor of the gods.

86:2.7 (952.2) But all religions did not develop from animism. Other concepts of the supernatural were contemporaneous with animism, and these beliefs also led to worship. Naturalism is not a religion—it is the offspring of religion.
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86:3.1 (952.3) Death was the supreme shock to evolving man, the most perplexing combination of chance and mystery. Not the sanctity of life but the shock of death inspired fear and thus effectively fostered religion. Among savage peoples death was ordinarily due to violence, so that nonviolent death became increasingly mysterious. Death as a natural and expected end of life was not clear to the consciousness of primitive people, and it has required age upon age for man to realize its inevitability.

86:3.2 (952.4) Early man accepted life as a fact, while he regarded death as a visitation of some sort. All races have their legends of men who did not die, vestigial traditions of the early attitude toward death. Already in the human mind there existed the nebulous concept of a hazy and unorganized spirit world, a domain whence came all that is inexplicable in human life, and death was added to this long list of unexplained phenomena.

86:3.3 (952.5) All human disease and natural death was at first believed to be due to spirit influence. Even at the present time some civilized races regard disease as having been produced by “the enemy” and depend upon religious ceremonies to effect healing. Later and more complex systems of theology still ascribe death to the action of the spirit world, all of which has led to such doctrines as original sin and the fall of man.

86:3.4 (952.6) It was the realization of impotency before the mighty forces of nature, together with the recognition of human weakness before the visitations of sickness and death, that impelled the savage to seek for help from the supermaterial world, which he vaguely visualized as the source of these mysterious vicissitudes of life.
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Spirits, ghosts, and the supernatural are the first explanations of reality and related phenomena- not material causes with mechanical or scientific reasons. Even obvious material phenomenon like rain, thunder, sunrise, moon phases, equinox, tides, etc. were explained and understood as spirit influence and interferences.

It appears that as science explains more of reality, humanity is distracted sufficiently to lose our dependence on the spirit world along with our superstitions. This, I think, is a very rare planetary reaction due to our loss of the influences of the Prince's staff and the later Garden of Eden where the reality of universal spirit forces was taught.

On most evolutionary worlds science and religion progress in partnership and not in isolation or competition. Superstitions are left behind by knowledge and experience but belief in the supernatural merely becomes more specific and accurate on normal worlds without the double loss Urantia suffered by rebellion and default.

We remain barbaric, superstitious, primitive, AND materialistic in our scientific progress we are told, as those who remain religious cling to fear based spiritualisms while the educated embrace materialism and shun the prmitivisms of the more religious primitives....the "absurd doctrines of twentieth century barbarians."

86:4.1 (952.7) The concept of a supermaterial phase of mortal personality was born of the unconscious and purely accidental association of the occurrences of everyday life plus the ghost dream. The simultaneous dreaming about a departed chief by several members of his tribe seemed to constitute convincing evidence that the old chief had really returned in some form. It was all very real to the savage who would awaken from such dreams reeking with sweat, trembling, and screaming.

86:4.2 (953.1) The dream origin of the belief in a future existence explains the tendency always to imagine unseen things in the terms of things seen. And presently this new dream-ghost-future-life concept began effectively to antidote the death fear associated with the biologic instinct of self-preservation.

86:4.3 (953.2) Early man was also much concerned about his breath, especially in cold climates, where it appeared as a cloud when exhaled. The breath of lifewas regarded as the one phenomenon which differentiated the living and the dead. He knew the breath could leave the body, and his dreams of doing all sorts of queer things while asleep convinced him that there was something immaterial about a human being. The most primitive idea of the human soul, the ghost, was derived from the breath-dream idea-system.

86:4.4 (953.3) Eventually the savage conceived of himself as a double—body and breath. The breath minus the body equaled a spirit, a ghost. While having a very definite human origin, ghosts, or spirits, were regarded as superhuman. And this belief in the existence of disembodied spirits seemed to explain the occurrence of the unusual, the extraordinary, the infrequent, and the inexplicable.

86:4.5 (953.4) The primitive doctrine of survival after death was not necessarily a belief in immortality. Beings who could not count over twenty could hardly conceive of infinity and eternity; they rather thought of recurring incarnations.

86:4.6 (953.5) The orange race was especially given to belief in transmigration and reincarnation. This idea of reincarnation originated in the observance of hereditary and trait resemblance of offspring to ancestors. The custom of naming children after grandparents and other ancestors was due to belief in reincarnation. Some later-day races believed that man died from three to seven times. This belief (residual from the teachings of Adam about the mansion worlds), and many other remnants of revealed religion, can be found among the otherwise absurd doctrines of twentieth-century barbarians.
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So...primitives create and embrace superstitious beliefs and explanations for material realities. Knowledge is lacking as is truth. We cannot unify, integrate, synchronize, and harmonize fact and truth when we have so little of both.

The evolution of religion is in many ways dependent upon the progress of science and knowledge of physics and natural laws of cause and effect which reduces the influences of superstition over time as we slowly glimpse reality as the duality of existence that it truly is...not all material or supernatural but both.


130:4.10 (1435.2) Knowledge is the sphere of the material or fact-discerning mind. Truth is the domain of the spiritually endowed intellect that is conscious of knowing God. Knowledge is demonstrable; truth is experienced. Knowledge is a possession of the mind; truth an experience of the soul, the progressing self. Knowledge is a function of the nonspiritual level; truth is a phase of the mind-spirit level of the universes. The eye of the material mind perceives a world of factual knowledge; the eye of the spiritualized intellect discerns a world of true values. These two views, synchronized and harmonized, reveal the world of reality, wherein wisdom interprets the phenomena of the universe in terms of progressive personal experience.
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fanofVan wrote:
The evolution of religion is in many ways dependent upon the progress of science and knowledge of physics and natural laws of cause and effect which reduces the influences of superstition over time as we slowly glimpse reality as the duality of existence that it truly is...not all material or supernatural but both.


This is why the framers put science first in TUB. I am sure they understood that giving scientists just enough information to set them on a path to a new paradigm, a new way of thinking about creation, would expand human consciousness and pave the way for a new awakening to Jesus.

The big fallacies that science is harboring are ,of course, big bang and the notion that the earth is somehow magically pulling on our bodies. These superstitious beliefs are keeping science from moving forward with a new expansion of mind based on truth.

regards, gray
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Thank you graybeard.

Primitive peoples got less superstitious but not less religious as they discovered more scientific and physics based solutions to natural phenomenon and began to manipulate nature by engineered solutions and technologies which gave them more control over outcomes and more protection from the forces of the natural world. Unfortunately, IMO, today's primitives (modern peoples) tend to dismiss the spirit nature and the supernatural as they embrace more scientific explanations for the material universe....as though science displaces or dismisses the power and relevancy of the supernatural and the spirit forces of reality.

A most unfortunate displacement by one aspect of reality as some form of substitute for the duality of our existence. Others of course disbelieve the contributions and value of science and tightly grip the false belief that science is purely a hoax of the irreligious.

Others among us are more mindless IMO, simple materialists pursuing the escapes and blindness and ease of pleasure and distraction. Without the religious life within and growth of the soul (spiritization) and fruits of the Spirit, happiness is illusion and unattainable and life is filled with frustration and disappointment the ONLY the Spirit can soothe. The yearn and the hunger and the urge of the Spirit is relentless and it is only by our personal responses to those thirsts of the spirit that we receive Divine Assurance and those fruits!

As graybeard and so many others here proclaim: Both spirit and science coexist in complete harmony. Natural laws are created and managed by the supernatural agents of creation. Natural law is not accidental or chaotic or unreasoned or haphazard or unmanaged. The integrated perspective is a view of reality as a harmonious system of reality that responds to both the mechanical and the personal aspects of that reality.

86:4.7 (953.6) Early man entertained no ideas of hell or future punishment. The savage looked upon the future life as just like this one, minus all ill luck. Later on, a separate destiny for good ghosts and bad ghosts—heaven and hell—was conceived. But since many primitive races believed that man entered the next life just as he left this one, they did not relish the idea of becoming old and decrepit. The aged much preferred to be killed before becoming too infirm.

86:4.8 (953.7) Almost every group had a different idea regarding the destiny of the ghost soul. The Greeks believed that weak men must have weak souls; so they invented Hades as a fit place for the reception of such anemic souls; these unrobust specimens were also supposed to have shorter shadows. The early Andites thought their ghosts returned to the ancestral homelands. The Chinese and Egyptians once believed that soul and body remained together. Among the Egyptians this led to careful tomb construction and efforts at body preservation. Even modern peoples seek to arrest the decay of the dead. The Hebrews conceived that a phantom replica of the individual went down to Sheol; it could not return to the land of the living. They did make that important advance in the doctrine of the evolution of the soul.

5. The Ghost-Soul Concept

86:5.1 (953.8) The nonmaterial part of man has been variously termed ghost, spirit, shade, phantom, specter, and latterly soul. The soul was early man’s dream double; it was in every way exactly like the mortal himself except that it was not responsive to touch. The belief in dream doubles led directly to the notion that all things animate and inanimate had souls as well as men. This concept tended long to perpetuate the nature-spirit beliefs; the Eskimos still conceive that everything in nature has a spirit.

86:5.2 (954.1) The ghost soul could be heard and seen, but not touched. Gradually the dream life of the race so developed and expanded the activities of this evolving spirit world that death was finally regarded as “giving up the ghost.” All primitive tribes, except those little above animals, have developed some concept of the soul. As civilization advances, this superstitious concept of the soul is destroyed, and man is wholly dependent on revelation and personal religious experience for his new idea of the soul as the joint creation of the God-knowing mortal mind and its indwelling divine spirit, the Thought Adjuster.

86:5.3 (954.2) Early mortals usually failed to differentiate the concepts of an indwelling spirit and a soul of evolutionary nature. The savage was much confused as to whether the ghost soul was native to the body or was an external agency in possession of the body. The absence of reasoned thought in the presence of perplexity explains the gross inconsistencies of the savage view of souls, ghosts, and spirits.

Related text:

111:0.2 (1215.2) The concept of a soul and of an indwelling spirit is not new to Urantia; it has frequently appeared in the various systems of planetary beliefs. Many of the Oriental as well as some of the Occidental faiths have perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as human in inheritance. The feeling of the inner presence in addition to the external omnipresence of Deity has long formed a part of many Urantian religions. Men have long believed that there is something growing within the human nature, something vital that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life.

111:0.3 (1215.3) Before man realized that his evolving soul was fathered by a divine spirit, it was thought to reside in different physical organs—the eye, liver, kidney, heart, and later, the brain. The savage associated the soul with blood, breath, shadows and with reflections of the self in water.

111:0.4 (1215.4) In the conception of the atman the Hindu teachers really approximated an appreciation of the nature and presence of the Adjuster, but they failed to distinguish the copresence of the evolving and potentially immortal soul. The Chinese, however, recognized two aspects of a human being, the yang and the yin, the soul and the spirit. The Egyptians and many African tribes also believed in two factors, the ka and the ba; the soul was not usually believed to be pre-existent, only the spirit.

111:0.5 (1215.5) The inhabitants of the Nile valley believed that each favored individual had bestowed upon him at birth, or soon thereafter, a protecting spirit which they called the ka. They taught that this guardian spirit remained with the mortal subject throughout life and passed before him into the future estate. On the walls of a temple at Luxor, where is depicted the birth of Amenhotep III, the little prince is pictured on the arm of the Nile god, and near him is another child, in appearance identical with the prince, which is a symbol of that entity which the Egyptians called the ka. This sculpture was completed in the fifteenth century before Christ.

111:0.6 (1215.6) The ka was thought to be a superior spirit genius which desired to guide the associated mortal soul into the better paths of temporal living but more especially to influence the fortunes of the human subject in the hereafter. When an Egyptian of this period died, it was expected that his ka would be waiting for him on the other side of the Great River. At first, only kings were supposed to have kas, but presently all righteous men were believed to possess them. One Egyptian ruler, speaking of the ka within his heart, said: “I did not disregard its speech; I feared to transgress its guidance. I prospered thereby greatly; I was thus successful by reason of that which it caused me to do; I was distinguished by its guidance.” Many believed that the ka was “an oracle from God in everybody.” Many believed that they were to “spend eternity in gladness of heart in the favor of the God that is in you.”

111:0.7 (1216.1) Every race of evolving Urantia mortals has a word equivalent to the concept of soul. Many primitive peoples believed the soul looked out upon the world through human eyes; therefore did they so cravenly fear the malevolence of the evil eye. They have long believed that “the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.” The Rig-Veda says: “My mind speaks to my heart.”

8)
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Have you noticed how many so called "new age" beliefs find origin in ancient superstitions and primitive evolutionary religious practices and myths??

Astral projection (flying dreams), dream interpretation, animal and nature spirits, transmigration of souls, pre-existence, numerology, astrology, crystals, the spirit within breath, luck and fate, material karma, ghosts, demons and gods who cause suffering or deliver its relief, etc. We are still very primitive people despite space travel and atomic powers.

The power of epochal revelation to enlighten and remove the burdens of primitivism and superstition and unify/harmonize science and religion is so profoundly important and helpful. Enjoy!

86:5.4 (954.3) The soul was thought of as being related to the body as the perfume to the flower. The ancients believed that the soul could leave the body in various ways, as in:

86:5.5 (954.4) 1. Ordinary and transient fainting.
86:5.6 (954.5) 2. Sleeping, natural dreaming.
86:5.7 (954.6) 3. Coma and unconsciousness associated with disease and accidents.
86:5.8 (954.7) 4. Death, permanent departure.

86:5.9 (954.8) The savage looked upon sneezing as an abortive attempt of the soul to escape from the body. Being awake and on guard, the body was able to thwart the soul’s attempted escape. Later on, sneezing was always accompanied by some religious expression, such as “God bless you!”

86:5.10 (954.9) Early in evolution sleep was regarded as proving that the ghost soul could be absent from the body, and it was believed that it could be called back by speaking or shouting the sleeper’s name. In other forms of unconsciousness the soul was thought to be farther away, perhaps trying to escape for good—impending death. Dreams were looked upon as the experiences of the soul during sleep while temporarily absent from the body. The savage believes his dreams to be just as real as any part of his waking experience. The ancients made a practice of awaking sleepers gradually so that the soul might have time to get back into the body.

86:5.11 (954.10) All down through the ages men have stood in awe of the apparitions of the night season, and the Hebrews were no exception. They truly believed that God spoke to them in dreams, despite the injunctions of Moses against this idea. And Moses was right, for ordinary dreams are not the methods employed by the personalities of the spiritual world when they seek to communicate with material beings.
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The power and persistence of mythologies:

86:5.12 (954.11) The ancients believed that souls could enter animals or even inanimate objects. This culminated in the werewolf ideas of animal identification. A person could be a law-abiding citizen by day, but when he fell asleep, his soul could enter a wolf or some other animal to prowl about on nocturnal depredations.

86:5.13 (955.1) Primitive men thought that the soul was associated with the breath, and that its qualities could be imparted or transferred by the breath. The brave chief would breathe upon the newborn child, thereby imparting courage. Among early Christians the ceremony of bestowing the Holy Spirit was accompanied by breathing on the candidates. Said the Psalmist: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” It was long the custom of the eldest son to try to catch the last breath of his dying father.

86:5.14 (955.2) The shadow came, later on, to be feared and revered equally with the breath. The reflection of oneself in the water was also sometimes looked upon as proof of the double self, and mirrors were regarded with superstitious awe. Even now many civilized persons turn the mirror to the wall in the event of death. Some backward tribes still believe that the making of pictures, drawings, models, or images removes all or a part of the soul from the body; hence such are forbidden.

86:5.15 (955.3) The soul was generally thought of as being identified with the breath, but it was also located by various peoples in the head, hair, heart, liver, blood, and fat. The “crying out of Abel’s blood from the ground” is expressive of the onetime belief in the presence of the ghost in the blood. The Semites taught that the soul resided in the bodily fat, and among many the eating of animal fat was taboo. Head hunting was a method of capturing an enemy’s soul, as was scalping. In recent times the eyes have been regarded as the windows of the soul.

86:5.16 (955.4) Those who held the doctrine of three or four souls believed that the loss of one soul meant discomfort, two illness, three death. One soul lived in the breath, one in the head, one in the hair, one in the heart. The sick were advised to stroll about in the open air with the hope of recapturing their strayed souls. The greatest of the medicine men were supposed to exchange the sick soul of a diseased person for a new one, the “new birth.”

86:5.17 (955.5) The children of Badonan developed a belief in two souls, the breath and the shadow. The early Nodite races regarded man as consisting of two persons, soul and body. This philosophy of human existence was later reflected in the Greek viewpoint. The Greeks themselves believed in three souls; the vegetative resided in the stomach, the animal in the heart, the intellectual in the head. The Eskimos believe that man has three parts: body, soul, and name.
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The evolutionary foundation of priests and social institutions of religion begins in the inner life of primitive humans as they ponder and project their inner life and "other" awareness of mortal inherent duality of inner/outer perspective onto their metaphysical creations of reality.

6. The Ghost-Spirit Environment

86:6.1 (955.6) Man inherited a natural environment, acquired a social environment, and imagined a ghost environment. The state is man’s reaction to his natural environment, the home to his social environment, the church to his illusory ghost environment.

86:6.2 (955.7) Very early in the history of mankind the realities of the imaginary world of ghosts and spirits became universally believed, and this newly imagined spirit world became a power in primitive society. The mental and moral life of all mankind was modified for all time by the appearance of this new factor in human thinking and acting.

86:6.3 (955.8) Into this major premise of illusion and ignorance, mortal fear has packed all of the subsequent superstition and religion of primitive peoples. This was man’s only religion up to the times of revelation, and today many of the world’s races have only this crude religion of evolution.

86:6.4 (955.9) As evolution progressed, good luck became associated with good spirits and bad luck with bad spirits. The discomfort of enforced adaptation to a changing environment was regarded as ill luck, the displeasure of the spirit ghosts. Primitive man slowly evolved religion out of his innate worship urge and his misconception of chance. Civilized man provides schemes of insurance to overcome these chance occurrences; modern science puts an actuary with mathematical reckoning in the place of fictitious spirits and whimsical gods.

86:6.5 (956.1) Each passing generation smiles at the foolish superstitions of its ancestors while it goes on entertaining those fallacies of thought and worship which will give cause for further smiling on the part of enlightened posterity.

Me here: Let us remember again that faith in the unseen realities and supernatural spirits is a true and powerful personal religious experience that can result in the birth of soul and progress in the Spirit (called spiritization in the UB) no matter how primitive our superstitions or false our beliefs may be. The effects of faith can lead to eternal destiny and outcomes! Loyalty to our ideals and highest concepts of spirit consciousness is faith and loyalty to God within....no matter how primitive the mind may be. The connection of the Adjutant Mind Spirits of Worship and Wisdom complete the human/mortal's circuitry TO the Spirit and provides for the potential of survival and destiny despite ignorance, fear, and false beliefs....or so I understand the UB to teach!

The UB seeks to give us a new lens and view and perspective - "a widened horizon" - in which to consider faith and the religious experience. The Evolution of Religion in the Papers provides important lessons for us to help us look affectionately upon our fellows and our ancestors as we all share in this personal adventure of faith and assurance and revelation and growth of soul - despite all the many differences in each experience and each expression of each experience.

100:4.5 (1098.2) 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 know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.

101:9.2 (1115.3) When you presume to sit in critical judgment on the primitive religion of man (or on the religion of primitive man), you should remember to judge such savages and to evaluate their religious experience in accordance with their enlightenment and status of conscience. Do not make the mistake of judging another’s religion by your own standards of knowledge and truth.

101:9.3 (1115.4) True religion is that sublime and profound conviction within the soul which compellingly admonishes man that it would be wrong for him not to believe in those morontial realities which constitute his highest ethical and moral concepts, his highest interpretation of life’s greatest values and the universe’s deepest realities. And such a religion is simply the experience of yielding intellectual loyalty to the highest dictates of spiritual consciousness.

8)
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