The Seven Master Spirits

16:8.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther be­stows per­son­al­ity upon nu­mer­ous or­ders of be­ings as they func­tion on di­verse lev­els of uni­verse ac­tu­al­ity. Uran­tia hu­man be­ings are en­dowed with per­son­al­ity of the fi­nite-mor­tal type, func­tion­ing on the level of the as­cend­ing sons of God.

16:8.2Though we can hardly un­der­take to de­fine per­son­al­ity, we may at­tempt to nar­rate our un­der­stand­ing of the known fac­tors which go to make up the en­sem­ble of ma­te­rial, men­tal, and spir­i­tual en­er­gies whose in­teras­so­ci­a­tion con­sti­tutes the mech­a­nism wherein and whereon and where­with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther causes his be­stowed per­son­al­ity to func­tion.

16:8.3Per­son­al­ity is a unique en­dow­ment of orig­i­nal na­ture whose ex­is­tence is in­de­pen­dent of, and an­te­ced­ent to, the be­stowal of the Thought Ad­juster. Nev­er­the­less, the pres­ence of the Ad­juster does aug­ment the qual­i­ta­tive man­i­fes­ta­tion of per­son­al­ity. Thought Ad­justers, when they come forth from the Fa­ther, are iden­ti­cal in na­ture, but per­son­al­ity is di­verse, orig­i­nal, and ex­clu­sive; and the man­i­fes­ta­tion of per­son­al­ity is fur­ther con­di­tioned and qual­i­fied by the na­ture and qual­i­ties of the as­so­ci­ated en­er­gies of a ma­te­rial, mindal, and spir­i­tual na­ture which con­sti­tute the or­gan­is­mal ve­hi­cle for per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion.

16:8.4Per­son­al­i­ties may be sim­i­lar, but they are never the same. Per­sons of a given se­ries, type, or­der, or pat­tern may and do re­sem­ble one an­other, but they are never iden­ti­cal. Per­son­al­ity is that fea­ture of an in­di­vid­ual which we know, and which en­ables us to iden­tify such a be­ing at some fu­ture time re­gard­less of the na­ture and ex­tent of changes in form, mind, or spirit sta­tus. Per­son­al­ity is that part of any in­di­vid­ual which en­ables us to rec­og­nize and pos­i­tively iden­tify that per­son as the one we have pre­vi­ously known, no mat­ter how much he may have changed be­cause of the mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the ve­hi­cle of ex­pres­sion and man­i­fes­ta­tion of his per­son­al­ity.

16:8.5Crea­ture per­son­al­ity is dis­tin­guished by two self-man­i­fest­ing and char­ac­ter­is­tic phe­nom­ena of mor­tal re­ac­tive be­hav­ior: self-con­scious­ness and as­so­ci­ated rel­a­tive free will.

16:8.6Self-con­scious­ness con­sists in in­tel­lec­tual aware­ness of per­son­al­ity ac­tu­al­ity; it in­cludes the abil­ity to rec­og­nize the re­al­ity of other per­son­al­i­ties. It in­di­cates ca­pac­ity for in­di­vid­u­al­ized ex­pe­ri­ence in and with cos­mic re­al­i­ties, equiv­alat­ing to the at­tain­ment of iden­tity sta­tus in the per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ships of the uni­verse. Self-con­scious­ness con­notes rec­og­ni­tion of the ac­tu­al­ity of mind min­is­tra­tion and the re­al­iza­tion of rel­a­tive in­de­pen­dence of cre­ative and de­ter­mi­na­tive free will.

16:8.7The rel­a­tive free will which char­ac­ter­izes the self-con­scious­ness of hu­man per­son­al­ity is in­volved in:

16:8.81. Moral de­ci­sion, high­est wis­dom.

16:8.92. Spir­i­tual choice, truth dis­cern­ment.

16:8.103. Un­selfish love, broth­er­hood ser­vice.

16:8.114. Pur­pose­ful co-op­er­a­tion, group loy­alty.

16:8.125. Cos­mic in­sight, the grasp of uni­verse mean­ings.

16:8.136. Per­son­al­ity ded­i­ca­tion, whole­hearted de­vo­tion to do­ing the Fa­ther’s will.

16:8.147. Wor­ship, the sin­cere pur­suit of di­vine val­ues and the whole­hearted love of the di­vine Value-Giver.

16:8.15The Uran­tia type of hu­man per­son­al­ity may be viewed as func­tion­ing in a phys­i­cal mech­a­nism con­sist­ing of the plan­e­tary mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the Neb­a­don type of or­gan­ism be­long­ing to the elec­tro­chem­i­cal or­der of life ac­ti­va­tion and en­dowed with the Neb­a­don or­der of the Or­von­ton se­ries of the cos­mic mind of pa­ren­tal re­pro­duc­tive pat­tern. The be­stowal of the di­vine gift of per­son­al­ity upon such a mind-en­dowed mor­tal mech­a­nism con­fers the dig­nity of cos­mic cit­i­zen­ship and en­ables such a mor­tal crea­ture forth­with to be­come re­ac­tive to the con­sti­tu­tive rec­og­ni­tion of the three ba­sic mind re­al­i­ties of the cos­mos:

16:8.161. The math­e­mat­i­cal or log­i­cal rec­og­ni­tion of the uni­for­mity of phys­i­cal cau­sa­tion.

16:8.172. The rea­soned rec­og­ni­tion of the obli­ga­tion of moral con­duct.

16:8.183. The faith-grasp of the fel­low­ship wor­ship of De­ity, as­so­ci­ated with the lov­ing ser­vice of hu­man­ity.

16:8.19The full func­tion of such a per­son­al­ity en­dow­ment is the be­gin­ning re­al­iza­tion of De­ity kin­ship. Such a self­hood, in­dwelt by a preper­sonal frag­ment of God the Fa­ther, is in truth and in fact a spir­i­tual son of God. Such a crea­ture not only dis­closes ca­pac­ity for the re­cep­tion of the gift of the di­vine pres­ence but also ex­hibits re­ac­tive re­sponse to the per­son­al­ity-grav­ity cir­cuit of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of all per­son­al­i­ties.