Table of Contents
Click below to view specific sections
13. The Sacred Spheres of Paradise
1. The Seven Sacred Worlds of the Father
2. Father-World Relationships
3. The Sacred Worlds of the Eternal Son
4. The Worlds of the Infinite Spirit
The Urantia Book
Paper 13
THE SACRED SPHERES OF PARADISE
13:0.1 BETWEEN THE CENTRAL Isle of Paradise and the innermost of the Havona planetary circuits there are situated in space three lesser circuits of special spheres. The innermost circuit consists of the seven secret spheres of the Universal Father; the second group is composed of the seven luminous worlds of the Eternal Son; in the outermost are the seven immense spheres of the Infinite Spirit, the executive-headquarters worlds of the Seven Master Spirits.
13:0.2 These three seven-world circuits of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are spheres of unexcelled grandeur and unimagined glory. Even their material or physical construction is of an order unrevealed to you. Each circuit is diverse in material, and each world of each circuit is different excepting the seven worlds of the Son, which are alike in physical constitution. All twenty-one are enormous spheres, and each group of seven is differently eternalized. As far as we know they have always been; like Paradise they are eternal. There exists neither record nor tradition of their origin.
13:0.3 The seven secret spheres of the Universal Father, circulating about Paradise in close proximity to the eternal Isle, are highly reflective of the spiritual luminosity of the central shining of the eternal Deities, shedding this light of divine glory throughout Paradise and even upon the seven circuits of Havona.
13:0.4 On the seven sacred worlds of the Eternal Son there appear to take origin the impersonal energies of spirit luminosity. No personal being may sojourn on any of these seven shining realms. With spiritual glory they illuminate all Paradise and Havona, and they directionize pure spirit luminosity to the seven superuniverses. These brilliant spheres of the second circuit likewise emit their light (light without heat) to Paradise and to the billion worlds of the seven-circuited central universe.
13:0.5 The seven worlds of the Infinite Spirit are occupied by the Seven Master Spirits, who preside over the destinies of the seven superuniverses, sending forth the spiritual illumination of the Third Person of Deity to these creations of time and space. And all Havona, but not the Isle of Paradise, is bathed in these spiritualizing influences.
13:0.6 Although the worlds of the Father are ultimate status spheres for all Father-endowed personalities, this is not their exclusive function. Many beings and entities other than personal sojourn on these worlds. Each world in the circuit of the Father and the circuit of the Spirit has a distinct type of permanent citizenship, but we think the Son’s worlds are inhabited by uniform types of other-than-personal beings. Father fragments are among the natives of Divinington; the other orders of permanent citizenship are unrevealed to you.
13:0.7 The twenty-one Paradise satellites serve many purposes in both central and superuniverses not disclosed in these narratives. You are able to understand so little of the life of these spheres that you cannot hope to gain anything like a consistent view of them, either as to nature or function; thousands of activities are there going on which are unrevealed to you. These twenty-one spheres embrace the potentials of the function of the master universe. These papers afford only a fleeting glimpse of certain circumscribed activities pertaining to the present universe age of the grand universe—rather, one of the seven sectors of the grand universe.
1. THE SEVEN SACRED WORLDS OF THE FATHER
13:1.1 The Father’s circuit of sacred life spheres contains the only inherent personality secrets in the universe of universes. These satellites of Paradise, the innermost of the three circuits, are the only forbidden domains concerned with personality in the central universe. Nether Paradise and the worlds of the Son are likewise closed to personalities, but neither of those realms is in any way directly concerned with personality.
13:1.2 The Paradise worlds of the Father are directed by the highest order of the Stationary Sons of the Trinity, the Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy. Of these worlds I can tell little; of their manifold activities I may tell less. Such information concerns only those beings who function thereon and go forth therefrom. And though I am somewhat familiar with six of these special worlds, never have I landed on Divinington; that world is wholly forbidden to me.
13:1.3 One of the reasons for the secrecy of these worlds is because each of these sacred spheres enjoys a specialized representation, or manifestation, of the Deities composing the Paradise Trinity; not a personality, but a unique presence of Divinity which can only be appreciated and comprehended by those particular groups of intelligences resident on, or admissible to, that particular sphere. The Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy are the personal agents of these specialized and impersonal presences of Divinity. And the Secrets of Supremacy are highly personal beings, superbly endowed and marvelously adapted to their exalted and exacting work.
13:1.4 1. DIVININGTON. This world is, in a unique sense, the “bosom of the Father,” the personal-communion sphere of the Universal Father, and thereon is a special manifestation of his divinity. Divinington is the Paradise rendezvous of the Thought Adjusters, but it is also the home of numerous other entities, personalities, and other beings taking origin in the Universal Father. Many personalities besides the Eternal Son are of direct origin by the solitary acts of the Universal Father. Only the Father fragments and those personalities and other beings of direct and exclusive origin in the Universal Father fraternize and function on this abode.
13:1.5 The secrets of Divinington include the secret of the bestowal and mission of Thought Adjusters. Their nature, origin, and the technique of their contact with the lowly creatures of the evolutionary worlds is a secret of this Paradise sphere. These amazing transactions do not personally concern the rest of us, and therefore do the Deities deem it proper to withhold certain features of this great and divine ministry from our full understanding. In so far as we come in contact with this phase of divine activity, we are permitted full knowledge of these transactions, but concerning the intimate details of this great bestowal we are not fully informed.
13:1.6 This sphere also holds the secrets of the nature, purpose, and activities of all other forms of Father fragments, of the Gravity Messengers, and of hosts of other beings unrevealed to you. It is highly probable that those truths pertaining to Divinington which are withheld from me, if revealed, would merely confuse and handicap me in my present work, and still again, perhaps they are beyond the conceptual capacity of my order of being.
13:1.7 2. SONARINGTON. This sphere is the “bosom of the Son,” the personal receiving world of the Eternal Son. It is the Paradise headquarters of the descending and ascending Sons of God when, and after, they are fully accredited and finally approved. This world is the Paradise home for all Sons of the Eternal Son and of his co-ordinate and associate Sons. There are numerous orders of divine sonship attached to this supernal abode which have not been revealed to mortals since they are not concerned with the plans of the ascension scheme of human spiritual progression through the universes and on to Paradise.
13:1.8 The secrets of Sonarington include the secret of the incarnation of the divine Sons. When a Son of God becomes a Son of Man, is literally born of woman, as occurred on your world nineteen hundred years ago, it is a universal mystery. It is occurring right along throughout the universes, and it is a Sonarington secret of divine sonship. The Adjusters are a mystery of God the Father. The incarnation of the divine Sons is a mystery of God the Son; it is a secret locked up in the seventh sector of Sonarington, a realm penetrated by none save those who have personally passed through this unique experience. Only those phases of incarnation having to do with your ascension career have been brought to your notice. There are many other phases of the mystery of the incarnation of the Paradise Sons of unrevealed types on missions of universe service which are undisclosed to you. And there are still other Sonarington mysteries.
13:1.9 3. SPIRITINGTON. This world is the “bosom of the Spirit,” the Paradise home of the high beings that exclusively represent the Infinite Spirit. Here forgather the Seven Master Spirits and certain of their offspring from all universes. At this celestial abode may also be found numerous unrevealed orders of spirit personalities, beings assigned to the manifold activities of the universe not associated with the plans of upstepping the mortal creatures of time to the Paradise levels of eternity.
13:1.10 The secrets of Spiritington involve the impenetrable mysteries of reflectivity. We tell you of the vast and universal phenomenon of reflectivity, more particularly as it is operative on the headquarters worlds of the seven superuniverses, but we never fully explain this phenomenon, for we do not fully understand it. Much, very much, we do comprehend, but many basic details are still mysterious to us. Reflectivity is a secret of God the Spirit. You have been instructed concerning reflectivity functions in relation to the ascension scheme of mortal survival, and it does so operate, but reflectivity is also an indispensable feature of the normal working of numerous other phases of universe occupation. This endowment of the Infinite Spirit is also utilized in channels other than those of intelligence gathering and information dissemination. And there are other secrets of Spiritington.
13:1.11 4. VICEGERINGTON. This planet is the “bosom of the Father and the Son” and is the secret sphere of certain unrevealed beings who take origin by the acts of the Father and the Son. This is also the Paradise home of many glorified beings of complex ancestry, those whose origin is complicated because of the many diverse techniques operative in the seven superuniverses. Many groups of beings forgather on this world whose identity has not been revealed to Urantia mortals.
13:1.12 The secrets of Vicegerington include the secrets of trinitization, and trinitization constitutes the secret of authority to represent the Trinity, to act as vicegerents of the Gods. Authority to represent the Trinity attaches only to those beings, revealed and unrevealed, who are trinitized, created, eventuated, or eternalized by any two or all three of the Paradise Trinity. Personalities brought into being by the trinitizing acts of certain types of glorified creatures represent no more than the conceptual potential mobilized in that trinitization, albeit such creatures may ascend the path of Deity embrace open to all of their kind.
13:1.13 Nontrinitized beings do not fully understand the technique of trinitization by either two or three Creators or by certain creatures. You will never fully understand such a phenomenon unless, in the far-distant future of your glorified career, you should essay and succeed in such an adventure, because otherwise these secrets of Vicegerington will always be forbidden you. But to me, a high Trinity-origin being, all sectors of Vicegerington are open. I fully understand, and just as fully and sacredly protect, the secret of my origin and destiny.
13:1.14 There are still other forms and phases of trinitization which have not been brought to the notice of the Urantia peoples, and these experiences, in their personal aspects, are duly protected in the secret sector of Vicegerington.
13:1.15 5. SOLITARINGTON. This world is the “bosom of the Father and the Spirit” and is the rendezvous of a magnificent host of unrevealed beings of origin in the conjoint acts of the Universal Father and the Infinite Spirit, beings who partake of the traits of the Father in addition to their Spirit inheritance.
13:1.16 This is also the home of the Solitary Messengers and of other personalities of the superangelic orders. You know of very few of these beings; there are vast numbers of orders unrevealed on Urantia. Because they are domiciled on the fifth world, it does not necessarily follow that the Father had aught to do with the creation of Solitary Messengers or their superangelic associates, but in this universe age he does have to do with their function. During the present universe age this is also the status sphere of the Universe Power Directors.
13:1.17 There are numerous additional orders of spirit personalities, beings unknown to mortal man, who look upon Solitarington as their Paradise home sphere. It should be remembered that all divisions and levels of universe activities are just as fully provided with spirit ministers as is the realm concerned with helping mortal man ascend to his divine Paradise destiny.
13:1.18 The secrets of Solitarington. Besides certain secrets of trinitization, this world holds the secrets of the personal relation of the Infinite Spirit with certain of the higher offspring of the Third Source and Center. On Solitarington are held the mysteries of the intimate association of numerous unrevealed orders with the spirits of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit, with the threefold spirit of the Trinity, and with the spirits of the Supreme, the Ultimate, and the Supreme-Ultimate.
13:1.19 6. SERAPHINGTON. This sphere is the “bosom of the Son and the Spirit” and is the home world of the vast hosts of unrevealed beings created by the Son and the Spirit. This is also the destiny sphere of all ministering orders of the angelic hosts, including supernaphim, seconaphim, and seraphim. There also serve in the central and outlying universes many orders of superb spirits who are not “ministering spirits to those who shall be heirs of salvation.” All these spirit workers in all levels and realms of universe activities look upon Seraphington as their Paradise home.
13:1.20 The secrets of Seraphington involve a threefold mystery, only one of which I may mention—the mystery of seraphic transport. The ability of various orders of seraphim and allied spirit beings to envelop within their spirit forms all orders of nonmaterial personalities and to carry them away on lengthy interplanetary journeys, is a secret locked up in the sacred sectors of Seraphington. The transport seraphim comprehend this mystery, but they do not communicate it to the rest of us, or perhaps they cannot. The other mysteries of Seraphington pertain to the personal experiences of types of spirit servers as yet not revealed to mortals. And we refrain from discussing the secrets of such closely related beings because you can almost comprehend such near orders of existence, and it would be akin to betrayal of trust to present even our partial knowledge of such phenomena.
13:1.21 7. ASCENDINGTON. This unique world is the “bosom of the Father, Son, and Spirit,” the rendezvous of the ascendant creatures of space, the receiving sphere of the pilgrims of time who are passing through the Havona universe on their way to Paradise. Ascendington is the actual Paradise home of the ascendant souls of time and space until they attain Paradise status. You mortals will spend most of your Havona “vacations” on Ascendington. During your Havona life Ascendington will be to you what the reversion directors were during the local and superuniverse ascension. Here you will engage in thousands of activities which are beyond the grasp of mortal imagination. And as on every previous advance in the Godward ascent, your human self will here enter into new relationships with your divine self.
13:1.22 The secrets of Ascendington include the mystery of the gradual and certain building up in the material and mortal mind of a spiritual and potentially immortal counterpart of character and identity. This phenomenon constitutes one of the most perplexing mysteries of the universes—the evolution of an immortal soul within the mind of a mortal and material creature.
13:1.23 You will never fully understand this mysterious transaction until you reach Ascendington. And that is just why all Ascendington will be open to your wondering gaze. One seventh of Ascendington is forbidden to me—that sector concerned with this very secret which is (or will be) the exclusive experience and possession of your type of being. This experience belongs to your human order of existence. My order of personality is not directly concerned with such transactions. It is therefore forbidden to me and eventually revealed to you. But even after it is revealed to you, for some reason it forever remains your secret. You do not reveal it to us nor to any other order of beings. We know about the eternal fusion of a divine Adjuster and an immortal soul of human origin, but the ascendant finaliters know this very experience as an absolute reality.
2. FATHER-WORLD RELATIONSHIPS
13:2.1 These home worlds of the diverse orders of spiritual beings are tremendous and stupendous spheres, and they are equal to Paradise in their matchless beauty and superb glory. They are rendezvous worlds, reunion spheres, serving as permanent cosmic addresses. As finaliters you will be domiciled on Paradise, but Ascendington will be your home address at all times, even when you enter service in outer space. Through all eternity you will regard Ascendington as your home of sentimental memories and reminiscent recollections. When you become seventh-stage spirit beings, possibly you will give up your residential status on Paradise.
13:2.2 If outer universes are in the making, if they are to be inhabited by time creatures of ascension potential, then we infer that these children of the future will also be destined to look upon Ascendington as their Paradise home world.
13:2.3 Ascendington is the only sacred sphere that will be unreservedly open to your inspection as a Paradise arrival. Vicegerington is the only sacred sphere that is wholly and unreservedly open to my scrutiny. Though its secrets are concerned in my origin, in this universe age I do not regard Vicegerington as my home. Trinity-origin beings and trinitized beings are not the same.
13:2.4 The Trinity-origin beings do not fully share the Father’s worlds; they have their sole homes on the Isle of Paradise in close proximity to the Most Holy Sphere. They often appear on Ascendington, the “bosom of the Father-Son-Spirit,” where they fraternize with their brethren who have come up from the lowly worlds of space.
13:2.5 You might assume that Creator Sons, being of Father-Son origin, would regard Vicegerington as their home, but such is not the case in this universe age of the function of God the Sevenfold. And there are many similar problems that will perplex you, for you are sure to encounter many difficulties as you attempt to understand these things which are so near Paradise. Nor can you successfully reason out these questions; you know so little. And if you knew more about the Father’s worlds, you would simply encounter more difficulties until you knew all about them. Status on any of these secret worlds is acquired by service as well as by nature of origin, and the successive universe ages may and do redistribute certain of these personality groupings.
13:2.6 The worlds of the inner circuit are really fraternal or status worlds more than actual residential spheres. Mortals will attain some status on each of the Father’s worlds save one. For example: When you mortals attain Havona, you are granted clearance for Ascendington, where you are most welcome, but you are not permitted to visit the other six sacred worlds. Subsequent to your passage through the Paradise regime and after your admission to the Corps of the Finality, you are granted clearance for Sonarington since you are sons of God as well as ascenders—and you are even more. But there will always remain one seventh of Sonarington, the sector of the incarnation secrets of the divine Sons, which will not be open to your scrutiny. Never will those secrets be revealed to the ascendant sons of God.
13:2.7 Eventually you will have full access to Ascendington and relative access to the other spheres of the Father except Divinington. But even when you are granted permission to land on five additional secret spheres, after you have become a finaliter, you will not be allowed to visit all sectors of such worlds. Nor will you be permitted to land on the shores of Divinington, the “bosom of the Father,” though you shall surely stand repeatedly at the “right hand of the Father.” Never throughout all eternity will there arise any necessity for your presence on the world of the Thought Adjusters.
13:2.8 These rendezvous worlds of spirit life are forbidden ground to the extent that we are asked not to negotiate entrance to those phases of these spheres which are wholly outside our realms of experience. You may become creature perfect even as the Universal Father is deity perfect, but you may not know all the experiential secrets of all other orders of universe personalities. When the Creator has an experiential personality secret with his creature, the Creator preserves that secret in eternal confidence.
13:2.9 All these secrets are supposedly known to the collective body of the Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy. These beings are fully known only by their special world groups; they are little comprehended by other orders. After you attain Paradise, you will know and ardently love the ten Secrets of Supremacy who direct Ascendington. Excepting Divinington, you will also achieve a partial understanding of the Secrets of Supremacy on the other worlds of the Father, though not so perfectly as on Ascendington.
13:2.10 The Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy, as their name might suggest, are related to the Supreme; they are likewise related to the Ultimate and to the future Supreme-Ultimate. These Secrets of Supremacy are the secrets of the Supreme and also the secrets of the Ultimate, even the secrets of the Supreme-Ultimate.
3. THE SACRED WORLDS OF THE ETERNAL SON
13:3.1 The seven luminous spheres of the Eternal Son are the worlds of the seven phases of pure-spirit existence. These shining orbs are the source of the threefold light of Paradise and Havona, their influence being largely, but not wholly, confined to the central universe.
13:3.2 Personality is not present on these Paradise satellites; therefore is there little concerning these pure-spirit abodes which can be presented to the mortal and material personality. We are taught that these worlds teem with the otherwise-than-personal life of the beings of the Eternal Son. We infer that these entities are being assembled for ministry in the projected new universes of outer space. The Paradise philosophers maintain that each Paradise cycle, about two billion years of Urantia time, witnesses the creation of additional reserves of these orders on the secret worlds of the Eternal Son.
13:3.3 As far as I am informed, no personality has ever been on any one of these spheres of the Eternal Son. I have never been assigned to visit one of these worlds in all my long experience in and out of Paradise. Even the personalities cocreated by the Eternal Son do not go to these worlds. We infer that all types of impersonal spirits—regardless of parentage—are admitted to these spirit homes. As I am a person and have a spirit form, no doubt such a world would seem empty and deserted even if I were permitted to pay it a visit. High spirit personalities are not given to the gratification of purposeless curiosity, purely useless adventure. There is at all times altogether too much intriguing and purposeful adventure to permit the development of any great interest in those projects which are either futile or unreal.
4. THE WORLDS OF THE INFINITE SPIRIT
13:4.1 Between the inner circuit of Havona and the shining spheres of the Eternal Son there circle the seven orbs of the Infinite Spirit, worlds inhabited by the offspring of the Infinite Spirit, by the trinitized sons of glorified created personalities, and by other types of unrevealed beings concerned with the effective administration of the many enterprises of the various realms of universe activities.
13:4.2 The Seven Master Spirits are the supreme and ultimate representatives of the Infinite Spirit. They maintain their personal stations, their power focuses, on the periphery of Paradise, but all operations concerned with their management and direction of the grand universe are conducted on and from these seven special executive spheres of the Infinite Spirit. The Seven Master Spirits are, in reality, the mind-spirit balance wheel of the universe of universes, an all-embracing, all-encompassing, and all-co-ordinating power of central location.
13:4.3 From these seven special spheres the Master Spirits operate to equalize and stabilize the cosmic-mind circuits of the grand universe. They also have to do with the differential spiritual attitude and presence of the Deities throughout the grand universe. Physical reactions are uniform, unvarying, and always instantaneous and automatic. But experiential spiritual presence is in accordance with the underlying conditions or states of spiritual receptivity inherent in the individual minds of the realms.
13:4.4 Physical authority, presence, and function are unvarying in all the universes, small or great. The differing factor in spiritual presence, or reaction, is the fluctuating differential in its recognition and reception by will creatures. Whereas the spiritual presence of absolute and existential Deity is in no manner whatever influenced by attitudes of loyalty or disloyalty on the part of created beings, at the same time it is true that the functioning presence of subabsolute and experiential Deity is definitely and directly influenced by the decisions, choices, and will-attitudes of such finite creature beings—by the loyalty and devotion of the individual being, planet, system, constellation, or universe. But this spiritual presence of divinity is not whimsical nor arbitrary; its experiential variance is inherent in the freewill endowment of personal creatures.
13:4.5 The determiner of the differential of spiritual presence exists in your own hearts and minds and consists in the manner of your own choosing, in the decisions of your minds, and in the determination of your own wills. This differential is inherent in the freewill reactions of intelligent personal beings, beings whom the Universal Father has ordained shall exercise this liberty of choosing. And the Deities are ever true to the ebb and flow of their spirits in meeting and satisfying the conditions and demands of this differential of creature choice, now bestowing more of their presence in response to a sincere desire for the same and again withdrawing themselves from the scene as their creatures decide adversely in the exercise of their divinely bestowed freedom of choice. And thus does the spirit of divinity become humbly obedient to the choosing of the creatures of the realms.
13:4.6 The executive abodes of the Seven Master Spirits are, in reality, the Paradise headquarters of the seven superuniverses and their correlated segments in outer space. Each Master Spirit presides over one superuniverse, and each of these seven worlds is exclusively assigned to one of the Master Spirits. There is literally no phase of the sub-Paradise administration of the seven superuniverses which is not provided for on these executive worlds. They are not so exclusive as the spheres of the Father or those of the Son, and though residential status is limited to native beings and those who work thereon, these seven administrative planets are always open to all beings who desire to visit them, and who can command the necessary means of transit.
13:4.7 To me, these executive worlds are the most interesting and intriguing spots outside of Paradise. In no other place in the wide universe can one observe such varied activities, involving so many different orders of living beings, having to do with operations on so many diverse levels, occupations at once material, intellectual, and spiritual. When I am accorded a period of release from assignment, if I chance to be on Paradise or in Havona, I usually proceed to one of these busy worlds of the Seven Master Spirits, there to inspire my mind with such spectacles of enterprise, devotion, loyalty, wisdom, and effectiveness. Nowhere else can I observe such an amazing interassociation of personality performances on all seven levels of universe reality. And I am always stimulated by the activities of those who well know how to do their work, and who so thoroughly enjoy doing it.
13:4.8 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom commissioned thus to function by the Ancients of Days on Uversa.]
