The Urantia Book

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Paper 114

Seraphic Planetary Government

Chief of Seraphim

4. The Most High Observer

114:4.1The sov­er­eignty of Uran­tia is fur­ther com­pli­cated by the one­time ar­bi­trary seizure of plan­e­tary au­thor­ity by the gov­ern­ment of Nor­la­ti­adek shortly af­ter the plan­e­tary re­bel­lion. There is still res­i­dent on Uran­tia a Vo­ron­da­dek Son, an ob­server for the Most Highs of Eden­tia and, in the ab­sence of di­rect ac­tion by Mi­chael, trus­tee of plan­e­tary sov­er­eignty. The pres­ent Most High ob­server (and some­time re­gent) is the twenty-third thus to serve on Uran­tia.

114:4.2There are cer­tain groups of plan­e­tary prob­lems which are still un­der the con­trol of the Most Highs of Eden­tia, ju­ris­dic­tion over them hav­ing been seized at the time of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. Au­thor­ity in these mat­ters is ex­er­cised by a Vo­ron­da­dek Son, the Nor­la­ti­adek ob­server, who main­tains very close ad­vi­sory re­la­tions with the plan­e­tary super­vi­sors. The race com­mis­sion­ers are very ac­tive on Uran­tia, and their var­i­ous group chiefs are in­for­mally at­tached to the res­i­dent Vo­ron­da­dek ob­server, who acts as their ad­vi­sory di­rec­tor.

114:4.3In a cri­sis the ac­tual and sov­er­eign head of the gov­ern­ment, ex­cept­ing in cer­tain purely spir­i­tual mat­ters, would be this Vo­ron­da­dek Son of Eden­tia now on ob­ser­va­tion duty. (In these ex­clu­sively spir­i­tual prob­lems and in cer­tain purely per­sonal mat­ters, the su­preme au­thor­ity seems to be vested in the com­mand­ing arch­an­gel at­tached to the di­vi­sional head­quar­ters of that or­der which was re­cently es­tab­lished on Uran­tia.)

114:4.4A Most High ob­server is em­pow­ered, at his dis­cre­tion, to seize the plan­e­tary gov­ern­ment in times of grave plan­e­tary crises, and it is of rec­ord that this has hap­pened thirty-three times in the his­tory of Uran­tia. At such times the Most High ob­server func­tions as the Most High re­gent, ex­er­cis­ing un­ques­tioned au­thor­ity over all min­is­ters and ad­min­is­tra­tors res­i­dent on the planet ex­cept­ing only the di­vi­sional or­ga­ni­za­tion of the arch­an­gels.

114:4.5Vo­ron­da­dek re­gen­cies are not pe­cu­liar to re­bel­lion-iso­lated plan­ets, for the Most Highs may in­ter­vene at any time in the af­fairs of the in­hab­ited worlds, in­ter­pos­ing the su­pe­rior wis­dom of the con­stel­la­tion rulers in the af­fairs of the king­doms of men.