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"Your world, Urantia, is one of many similar inhabited planets which comprise the local universe of Nebadon. This universe, together with similar creations, makes up the superuniverse of Orvonton..."
-- Introduction, Urantia Papers

The Origins of Alien & Human Races

The Urantia Papers

I once travelled with a blond haired woman (no, she wasn't tall) to China. In some of the smaller villages the children -- and some adults -- surrounded us and wanted to touch her hair. For most, it was the first time they had seen hair that was not black. Humans are curious people and part of our fascination with aliens is that, despite being human-like, they look so different from us.

While there are many discussions and revelations about the appearance of aliens, I have found no better explanation and analysis of this subject that those in a curious text called the Urantia Papers.

The Urantia Papers are a collection of transcribed sessions with extraterrestrial entities, mostly non-material, which describe the structure and organization of the Universe, it's various races and political structure as well as a detailed history of the creation and evolution of humans.

Although they were written sometime before 1932, I first became aware of the Urantia Papers in 1971. Over the years I have read and re-read the material and always find it both comprehensive and thorough in its concept. In 1975 I was fortunate to have met and interviewed Emma "Christy" Christensen, who was present during the transfer of knowledge and actually transcribed most of the material from its sources. I will try to recall my conversation with her to explain what I learned about the origins of this remarkable collection of information. Some of the minor details may be incorrect, but the actual story was unforgettable.

Prohibition, Kellogg Cornflakes & Eugenics

From 1920 through 1933 there was a ban on alcoholic beverages in the United States. Called "Prohibition", the laws were difficult to enforce and stimulated an underground market for clandestine "booze" and was a boon to organized crime. While the ordinary worker could hardly afford to get drunk, the upper classes partied with imported alcohol and soon began to suffer the consequences of overindulgence.

Alcoholism usually culminates in a deficiency of thiamine, or vitamin B1. Symptoms of this deficiency appear as tremors, delirium and other nervous system problems. These medical problems were common among the rich and famous of the late 20s and early 30s and were treated in mental hygiene clinics where the patients were fed thiamine-rich grains, such as corn. The most popular clinics of this type were run by the Post and Kellogg families in the Midwest.

The founder of the Kellogg business was a philanthropist named John Kellogg [below: right]. He and his wife took care of many orphan children, sometimes legally adopting them and often not. But most of the children were well cared for and inherited the family name. One of these children was Wilfred Kellogg.

We know very little about Wilfred other than the fact that he was not well schooled and suffered from some mental peculiarities. John Kellogg sought help for Wilfred from a well known Mental Hygiene specialist in Chicago, Dr. William Sadler, who was married to his sister, Lena Kellogg Sadler, a prominent surgeon. As the story is told, Wilfred suffered from "spells" during which he would speak in a different voice and use language that apparently made no sense. Dr. Sadler was asked to intervene as a favor to the family.

According to Emma Christensen, Wilfred appeared normal when he was not having these spells, albeit he was lacking in education and schooling. But once in the office of Dr. Sadler -- and frequently in Wilfred's bedroom as he slept -- he had his piculiar spells and began to talk in a different voice, using excellent grammar and vocabulary -- much to the surprise of his observers.

Wilfred and Dr. Sadler had many conversations covering a myriad of topics which included science, philosophy and religion. Dr. Sadler attempted to explore the depth and scope of this "sleeping subject" and soon enlisted the assistance of other intellectuals, fluent is various disciplines and sciences, to query Wilfred during these spells. It should be mentioned that when Wilfred came out of these states he was totally ignorant of what had transpired and resumed his normal consciousness.

Eventually there were many dozens of observers who were studying Wilfred. They would question him about such matters as physics, history, biology and astronomy and verified that his knowledge of these topics was complete and even futuristic. It was about this time that "Christy" (Emma Christensen), Dr. Sadler's adopted daughter and stenographer, was asked to transcribe the various inquisitions. Then it happened.

Suddenly Wilfred, during a spell, announced that he had something urgent to say and that it was to be transcribed for humanity. Subsequently Christy transcribed each session in which a different entity would speak through Wilfred on a variety of organized topics. These transcripts became the individual Urantia Papers -- Urantia being the name of planet Earth in the Universal language.

Once Wilfred had completed his mission he was cured of his spells and went on to get married and maintained a job in the Kellogg company. His involvement with the delivery of the papers was kept secret both to protect him from harassment and with the sincere belief that it was not he, Wilfred, who originated the papers.

Recently there has been some controversy about whether Wilfred was the actual "sleeping subject". All I can say is the above story was told to me by Emma Christensen in 1975. I figured she ought to have known and had no reason to deceive me. Anyway, it's a good story.

Much of the material in the Urantia Papers contains an underlying theme of genetics, on the part of the originators of human life on the planet and also in the deterioration of the human gene pool. Often there are subtle warnings about allowing the inferior humans to multiply. This theme was obviously carried by Dr. Lena Kellogg Sadler, the wife of Dr. William Sadler, who became a spokesperson for the popular eugenics movement in America.

As a fellow member of the American College of Sugeons and director of the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs, Dr. Lena Kellogg Sadler made a famous speech in which she suggested that the mentally inferior humans should be sterilized and confined to work camps where they would be successfully removed from the gene pool. The wealthy and prosperous people with successful genes were encouraged to have many children and "uplift" the human gene pool. Some articles of the era even suggested that corn flakes were developed as a kind of economical "feed" for the individuals confined to these camps. Although this sounds shocking now, and reminiscent of Nazi Germany, it was once an idea that was gaining ground in the early American society.

Universe Organization

According to the Urantia Papers the material universe is finite and has a central abode of enormous proportions which serves as the gravitational stabilizer and headquarters of deity. The geography of suns and planets are divided into seven huge wheels called SuperUniverses [see below], which contain galaxies, local universes and individual solar systems with inhabited planets.

There is also a government of sorts, albeit spiritual, and each local universe is ruled by a System Sovereign who designs life, coordinates its implementation and evolution and then tests it by becoming incarnate as various creatures of his local universe realm. In the discourse of the Urantia Papers this Sovereign was Jesus and his incarnation as a human -- the lowest sentient form of life in his Local Universe repertoire -- was the final test, after which he could claim authority to rule over his creation.

In the papers we are told that there are as many as 100,000 System Sovereigns in our SuperUniverse. Each represents a portion of the universe where suns and planets have been materialized, and a specific pattern of life forms has been established -- both material and spiritual.

Urantia, the name of our planet, is classified as an experimental world where dramatic adjustments to the standard genetic code is implemented. Every tenth planet is so designated. Our experiment was designed to speed up the appearance of various human races which usually evolve in succession over many millennia. The result was quite unexpected in that several different racial types appeared suddenly and had to learn to coexist, resulting in competition and aggression. The situation was further complicated when some unauthorized blending took place between non-terrestrial beings and the human population, causing a race of superior beings midway between human and spirit. It was because of these mishaps that the System Sovereign chose Urantia as the planet to incarnate as a homo sapiens sapiens.

The Raison d'etre of life

One of the strong points of the Urantia revelations is there very understandable explanation for the critical questions: Why is there life? and What's it all about? From the perspective of a human being it is to exist beyond material death to serve in future assignments for the benefit of deity.

Humans have minds which constantly struggle, learn and adjust to their environment in an effort to survive and thrive. The patterns of survival become part of the mind itself and are known to the sentient human and his associates as personality. This is the ego, the self with which we identify. But because this phenomenon is organically based, it ceases to exist when the material body dies.

The Urantia Papers propose that there also exists a fragment of the Creator -- a pure spirit -- which, because it has no environmental challenges, has no personality. They call this entity the Thought Adjuster and it is similar to our concept of "soul". The goal of human existence is then to transfer our personality to the Adjuster so that we can survive physical death and continue eternity in the Universe as personalized spirits. This is achieved by living according to patterns of behavior and thought which make our personality compatible with the evolving personality of the Creator.

If we achieve fusion with our Adjuster we will be assigned to other duties in the realm -- perhaps serving as guardians for other material beings who are attempting to fuse. The whole scheme of life is devoted to serving the Creator and helping to evolve the grand personality of the Creator spirit -- in essence, making the word become flesh.

Urantia, we have a problem!

We are told that not all of the higher spirits were comfortable with this scheme. A group dared to question the benefit of expending so much effort to help mortals to evolve into personalized spirits. They claimed that it seemed to be futile as no one had ever been able to visualize the final goal of this continuous evolution. They suggested that mortals should not even attempt fusion but should enjoy their temporal lives.

There was more to their rejection of the Adjuster fusion scheme, but the result was the same -- a rebellion against the authority of the System Sovereign which attracted many personalized spiritual entities on many inhabited worlds, including Urantia.

One of the impressive spirits that joined the rebellion was stationed on our planet and, as a result of this treason, our world and the neighboring inhabited planets was quarantined from the rest of the local universe. This is why we know little or nothing of the local universe, inhabited worlds or spiritual authorities and have been left to wade through our ignorance.

This also explains the phenomenon of evil. Since the rebels' aim is to thwart mortal fusion with the Adjuster spirit, various forms of distracting behavior -- appealing to our mortal and animal instincts -- is their forté. This would explain the promotion of war, violence, pornography, lust, racial hatred and materialism that we see endemic in our culture. These can all be traced back to the rebels and their human associates who have exchanged eternal service in favor of mortal rewards. These human associates do not believe in an afterlife and have positioned themselves in control of human finance, information and politics. They are the personification of evil.

It appears that within the quarantined section of the local universe certain neighboring planets have been able to establish communication and travel. This may account for the alien visitors and vehicles we observe. Because they are also inhabited by rebels, their intentions may not always be good. The Urantia Papers give some detailed descriptions of what some of these other life forms are like.