The book should stand on its own nature and work
With one or two exceptions, all the psychic phenomena which I have investigated have turned out to be either conscious or unconscious frauds
The foreword to the first edition cuts directly to the chase. In the space of five quick paragraphs, it offers a quick over of God and humankind’s place in the universe, concluding with a cosmological geography lesson. Urantia – Earth to the uninitiated – is a member of the Nebadon, a group of planets comprising the “local universe.” It, along with others of comparable status, form the “super-universe,” Orvonton. Orvonton’s capital is Uversa, where the book’s true authors live.
It accomplishes the task of distilling a good deal of information with remarkable pith. Even so, the author concedes, the work of verbalizing the knowledge continued therein is a rather daunting one.
“It is exceedingly difficult to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth, in our endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception, when we are restricted to the use of a circumscribed language of the realm,” the writer confesses. “But our mandate admonishes us to make every effort to convey our meanings by using the word symbols of the English tongue. We have been instructed to introduce new terms only when the concept to be portrayed finds no terminology in English which can be employed to convey such a new concept partially or even with more or less distortion of meaning.”
Almost immediately, attempts at brevity are abandoned, as the texts balloons to 2,097 pages. And while it offers its own baked-in origin story, how precisely, it ended up in human hands is a different question entirely.
Eleven years before the turn of the century, William Sadler landed a role as a bellhop at Michigan’s Battle Creek Sanitarium. Enrolling in college at age 16, he found a mentor in WK Kellogg, a prominent clean-eating advocate, who’d returned home to Battle Creek to help run the world-famous health resort. A quick study and a born salesman, Sadler soon made his way to Chicago, where helped run Kellogg’s Life Boat Mission, publishing and editing its eponymous magazine.
After studying to become an evangelist (and later an ordained minister), Sadler met and married Kellogg’s niece, Lena Celestia. The loss of their first son compelled the couple to embark on medical careers, culminating with the opening of a joint practice focused primarily on women and children.
Like many of the details surrounding The Urantia Book’s creation, the precise timeline is fuzzy. Some time between the years 1906 and 1911, a woman consulted with the Sadlers, over concerns about her husband’s sleep. After attempting to wake the man – going so far as sticking pins into his skin – they were content to simply observe. William catalogued the subject’s strange nocturnal movements over the course of several visits.
It was Lena who initiated the “first contact,” when, while sleeping, the man appeared to moisten his lips with his tongue. “Perhaps he wants to say something,” she suggested. “Perhaps we should ask a question. How are you feeling?”
For the first time in his sleeping state, the man reportedly began to speak. It was a voice distinct from his waking one, as he informed the small crowd that he was a student, visiting from a different planet. William scheduled an appointment for the man to visit his office. Under hypnosis, it became clear the subject had no awareness of the words he’d spoken in his sleep. Nor could the physician determine any disorder that might have resulted in such strange behavior.
For another decade, William failed to crack the case. “With one or two exceptions, all the psychic phenomena which I have investigated have turned out to be either conscious or unconscious frauds,” he confessed to a small gathering of medical professionals. “Some were deliberate frauds, others were those peculiar cases in which the performer was a victim of the deceptions of his own subconscious mind.”
Pressed to explain the exception, he described the case of the sleeping man. His audience responded, in-kind, producing nearly 200 questioned to ask the subject, beginning with the existence of God. Those plans, however, were soon derailed by a startled call from the man’s wife, demanding the Sadlers come over immediately. When they arrived, she presented a 500 page manuscript – one she said had suddenly appeared at their bedside the night prior, as she was awakened by his sounds.
New papers appeared for another decade, finally ceasing in 1935. William compiled the text into the four-volume work, titled The Urantia Book. It sought to explain the origins of the world, the meaning of life and the nature of God. William formed a study group that opted not to share the work with the outside world, though more than 400 people were said to have been through its ranks. Their studies culminated with the book’s publication in 1955 – apparently with the subject’s blessing.
Both the book and it its origin have, naturally, come under a good deal of scrutiny since publication. Critics have noted a similarity to William’s own Adventist writings while training with Kellogg. In 1958, the physician penned his own defense of the works’ origin titled, Consideration of Some Criticisms of the Urantia Book.
“The authors of the Books of the Bible are known,” begins a spirited defense of the work’s anonymity. “The book itself tells about how the Urantia Papers came to be. The reason given us for not disclosing the identity of the subject employed in this transaction was: We do not want future generations to be concerned with the adoration of a Saint Peter or Saint Paul, a Luther, Calvin, or Wesley. We want no individual to be exalted by the Urantia Papers. The book should stand on its own nature and work.”
Sources:
UFO Religions Ed. Christopher Partridge
The Urantia Book by Anonymous
Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery by Martin Gardner
A History of the Urantia Papers by Larry Mullins and Meredith Justin Sprunger