Ministering Spirits of the Central Universe

26:10.1The super­aphic coun­selors and ad­vis­ers of the sec­ond cir­cle are the in­struc­tors of the chil­dren of time re­gard­ing the ca­reer of eter­nity. The at­tain­ment of Par­a­dise en­tails re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of a new and higher or­der, and the so­journ on the sec­ond cir­cle af­fords am­ple op­por­tu­nity to re­ceive the help­ful coun­sel of these de­voted super­na­phim.

26:10.2Those who are un­suc­cess­ful in the first ef­fort at De­ity at­tain­ment are ad­vanced from the cir­cle of fail­ure di­rectly to the sec­ond cir­cle be­fore they are re­turned to super­uni­verse ser­vice. Thus the coun­selors and ad­vis­ers also serve as the coun­selors and com­forters of these dis­ap­pointed pil­grims. They have just en­coun­tered their great­est dis­ap­point­ment, in no way dif­fer­ing from the long list of such ex­pe­ri­ences whereon they climbed, as on a lad­der, from chaos to glory—ex­cept in its mag­ni­tude. These are they who have drained the ex­pe­ri­en­tial cup to its dregs; and I have ob­served that they tem­porar­ily re­turn to the ser­vices of the super­uni­verses as the high­est type of lov­ing min­is­tra­tors to the chil­dren of time and tem­po­ral dis­ap­point­ments.

26:10.3Af­ter a long so­journ on cir­cuit num­ber two the sub­jects of dis­ap­point­ment are ex­am­ined by the coun­cils of per­fec­tion sit­ting on the pi­lot world of this cir­cle and are cer­ti­fied as hav­ing passed the Ha­vona test; and this, so far as non­spir­i­tual sta­tus is con­cerned, grants them the same stand­ing in the uni­verses of time as if they had ac­tu­ally suc­ceeded in the De­ity ad­ven­ture. The spirit of such can­di­dates was wholly ac­cept­able; their fail­ure was in­her­ent in some phase of the tech­nique of ap­proach or in some part of their ex­pe­ri­en­tial back­ground.

26:10.4They are then taken by the coun­selors of the cir­cle be­fore the chiefs of as­sign­ment on Par­a­dise and are re­manded to the ser­vice of time on the worlds of space; and they go with joy and glad­ness to the tasks of for­mer days and ages. In an­other day they will re­turn to the cir­cle of their great­est dis­ap­point­ment and at­tempt anew the De­ity ad­ven­ture.

26:10.5For the suc­cess­ful pil­grims on the sec­ond cir­cuit the stim­u­lus of evo­lu­tion­ary un­cer­tainty is over, but the ad­ven­ture of the eter­nal as­sign­ment has not yet be­gun; and while the so­journ on this cir­cle is wholly plea­sur­able and highly prof­itable, it lacks some of the an­tic­i­pa­tive en­thu­si­asm of the for­mer cir­cles. Many are the pil­grims who, at such a time, look back upon the long, long strug­gle with a joy­ous envy, re­ally wish­ing they might some­how go back to the worlds of time and be­gin it all over again, just as you mor­tals, in ap­proach­ing ad­vanced age, some­times look back over the strug­gles of youth and early life and truly wish you might live your lives over once again.

26:10.6But the traver­sal of the in­ner­most cir­cle lies just ahead, and soon there­after the last tran­sit sleep will ter­mi­nate, and the new ad­ven­ture of the eter­nal ca­reer will be­gin. The coun­selors and ad­vis­ers on the sec­ond cir­cle be­gin the prepa­ra­tion of their sub­jects for this great and fi­nal rest, the in­ev­i­ta­ble sleep which ever in­ter­venes be­tween the ep­ochal stages of the as­cen­dant ca­reer.

26:10.7When those as­cen­dant pil­grims who have at­tained the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther com­plete the sec­ond-cir­cle ex­pe­ri­ence, their ever-at­ten­dant Grad­u­ate Guides is­sue the or­der ad­mit­ting them to the fi­nal cir­cle. These guides per­son­ally pi­lot their sub­jects to the in­ner cir­cle and there place them in the cus­tody of the com­ple­ments of rest, the last of those or­ders of sec­ondary super­na­phim as­signed to the min­istry of the pil­grims of time on the world cir­cuits of Ha­vona.