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Paper 26

Ministering Spirits of the Central Universe

Perfector of Wisdom

1. The Ministering Spirits

26:1.1An­gels are the min­is­ter­ing-spirit as­so­ciates of the evo­lu­tion­ary and as­cend­ing will crea­tures of all space; they are also the col­leagues and work­ing as­so­ciates of the higher hosts of the di­vine per­son­al­i­ties of the spheres. The an­gels of all or­ders are dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties and are highly in­di­vid­u­al­ized. They all have a large ca­pac­ity for ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the min­is­tra­tions of the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors. To­gether with the Mes­sen­ger Hosts of Space, the min­is­ter­ing spir­its en­joy sea­sons of rest and change; they pos­sess very so­cial na­tures and have an as­so­cia­tive ca­pac­ity far tran­scend­ing that of hu­man be­ings.

26:1.2The min­is­ter­ing spir­its of the grand uni­verse are clas­si­fied as fol­lows:

26:1.31. Super­na­phim.

26:1.42. Se­con­a­phim.

26:1.53. Ter­tiaphim.

26:1.64. Om­niaphim.

26:1.75. Ser­a­phim.

26:1.86. Cheru­bim and Sa­no­bim.

26:1.97. Mid­way Crea­tures.

26:1.10The in­di­vid­ual mem­bers of the an­gelic or­ders are not al­to­gether sta­tion­ary as to per­sonal sta­tus in the uni­verse. An­gels of cer­tain or­ders may be­come Par­a­dise Com­pan­ions for a sea­son; some be­come Ce­les­tial Re­cord­ers; oth­ers as­cend to the ranks of the Tech­ni­cal Ad­vis­ers. Cer­tain of the cheru­bim may as­pire to se­raphic sta­tus and des­tiny, while evo­lu­tion­ary ser­a­phim can achieve the spir­i­tual lev­els of the as­cend­ing Sons of God.

26:1.11The seven or­ders of min­is­ter­ing spir­its, as re­vealed, are grouped for pre­sen­ta­tion in ac­cor­dance with their func­tions of great­est im­por­tance to as­cend­ing crea­tures:

26:1.121. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of the Cen­tral Uni­verse. The three or­ders of super­na­phim serve in the Par­a­dise-Ha­vona sys­tem. Pri­mary or Par­a­dise super­na­phim are cre­ated by the In­fi­nite Spirit. The sec­ondary and ter­tiary or­ders, serv­ing in Ha­vona, are re­spec­tively the off­spring of the Mas­ter Spir­its and of the Spir­its of the Cir­cuits.

26:1.132. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of the Super­uni­verses—the se­con­a­phim, the ter­tiaphim, and the om­niaphim. Se­con­a­phim, the chil­dren of the Re­flec­tive Spir­its, var­i­ously serve in the seven super­uni­verses. Ter­tiaphim, of ori­gin in the In­fi­nite Spirit, are even­tu­ally ded­i­cated to the li­ai­son ser­vice of the Cre­ator Sons and the An­cients of Days. Om­niaphim are cre­ated con­cert­edly by the In­fi­nite Spirit and the Seven Su­preme Ex­ec­u­tives, and they are the ex­clu­sive ser­vants of the lat­ter. The dis­cus­sion of these three or­ders forms the sub­ject of a suc­ceed­ing nar­ra­tive in this se­ries.

26:1.143. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of the Lo­cal Uni­verses em­brace the ser­a­phim and their as­sis­tants, the cheru­bim. With these off­spring of a Uni­verse Mother Spirit mor­tal as­cend­ers have ini­tial con­tact. The mid­way crea­tures, of na­tiv­ity on the in­hab­ited worlds, are not re­ally of the an­gelic or­ders proper, though of­ten func­tion­ally grouped with the min­is­ter­ing spir­its. Their story, with an ac­count of the ser­a­phim and cheru­bim, is pre­sented in those pa­pers deal­ing with the af­fairs of your lo­cal uni­verse.

26:1.15All or­ders of the an­gelic hosts are de­voted to the var­i­ous uni­verse ser­vices, and they min­is­ter in one way or an­other to the higher or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings; but it is the super­na­phim, se­con­a­phim, and ser­a­phim who, in large num­bers, are em­ployed in the fur­ther­ance of the as­cend­ing scheme of pro­gres­sive per­fec­tion for the chil­dren of time. Func­tion­ing in the cen­tral, su­per-, and lo­cal uni­verses, they form that un­bro­ken chain of spirit min­is­ters which has been pro­vided by the In­fi­nite Spirit for the help and guid­ance of all who seek to at­tain the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther through the Eter­nal Son.

26:1.16Super­na­phim are lim­ited in “spirit po­lar­ity” re­gard­ing only one phase of ac­tion, that with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. They can work singly ex­cept when di­rectly em­ploy­ing the ex­clu­sive cir­cuits of the Fa­ther. When they are in power re­cep­tion on the Fa­ther’s di­rect min­istry, super­na­phim must vol­un­tar­ily as­so­ciate in pairs to be able to func­tion. Se­con­a­phim are like­wise lim­ited and in ad­di­tion must work in pairs in or­der to syn­chro­nize with the cir­cuits of the Eter­nal Son. Ser­a­phim can work singly as dis­crete and lo­cal­ized per­son­al­i­ties, but they are able to en­cir­cuit only when po­lar­ized as li­ai­son pairs. When such spirit be­ings are as­so­ci­ated as pairs, the one is spo­ken of as com­ple­men­tal to the other. Com­ple­men­tal re­la­tion­ships may be tran­sient; they are not nec­es­sar­ily of a per­ma­nent na­ture.

26:1.17These bril­liant crea­tures of light are sus­tained di­rectly by the in­take of the spir­i­tual en­ergy of the pri­mary cir­cuits of the uni­verse. Uran­tia mor­tals must ob­tain light-en­ergy through the veg­e­ta­tive in­car­na­tion, but the an­gelic hosts are en­cir­cuited; they “have food that you know not.” They also par­take of the cir­cu­lat­ing teach­ings of the mar­velous Trin­ity Teacher Sons; they have a re­cep­tion of knowl­edge and an in­take of wis­dom much re­sem­bling their tech­nique of as­sim­i­lat­ing the life en­er­gies.