The Urantia Book

Settings

Reading
Theme
Text size
Line spacing

Typeface

Width
Alignment
Show
Listening

Kept in this browser only.

Paper 29

The Universe Power Directors

Universal Censor

4. The Master Physical Controllers

29:4.1These be­ings are the mo­bile sub­or­di­nates of the Su­preme Power Cen­ters. The phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are en­dowed with ca­pa­bil­i­ties of in­di­vid­u­al­ity meta­mor­pho­sis of such a na­ture that they can en­gage in a re­mark­able va­ri­ety of au­to­trans­port, be­ing able to tra­verse lo­cal space at ve­loc­i­ties ap­proach­ing the flight of Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers. But like all other space tra­versers they re­quire the as­sis­tance of both their fel­lows and cer­tain other types of be­ings in over­com­ing the ac­tion of grav­ity and the re­sis­tance of in­er­tia in de­part­ing from a ma­te­rial sphere.

29:4.2The Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers serve through­out the grand uni­verse. They are di­rectly gov­erned from Par­a­dise by the Seven Su­preme Power Di­rec­tors as far as the head­quar­ters of the super­uni­verses; from here they are di­rected and dis­tributed by the Coun­cil of Equi­lib­rium, the high com­mis­sion­ers of power dis­patched by the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its from the per­son­nel of the As­so­ciate Mas­ter Force Or­ga­niz­ers. These high com­mis­sion­ers are em­pow­ered to in­ter­pret the read­ings and reg­is­tra­tions of the mas­ter fran­dalanks, those liv­ing in­stru­ments which in­di­cate the power pres­sure and the en­ergy charge of an en­tire super­uni­verse.

29:4.3While the pres­ence of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties en­cir­cles the grand uni­verse and sweeps around the cir­cle of eter­nity, the in­flu­ence of any one of the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its is lim­ited to a sin­gle super­uni­verse. There is a dis­tinct seg­re­ga­tion of en­ergy and a sep­a­ra­tion of the cir­cuits of power be­tween each of the seven super­cre­ations; hence in­di­vid­u­al­ized con­trol meth­ods must and do pre­vail.

29:4.4The Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers are the di­rect off­spring of the Su­preme Power Cen­ters, and their num­bers in­clude the fol­low­ing:

29:4.51. As­so­ciate Power Di­rec­tors.

29:4.62. Me­chan­i­cal Con­trol­lers.

29:4.73. En­ergy Trans­form­ers.

29:4.84. En­ergy Trans­mit­ters.

29:4.95. Pri­mary As­so­ci­a­tors.

29:4.106. Sec­ondary Dis­so­ci­a­tors.

29:4.117. The Fran­dalanks and Chro­nol­deks.

29:4.12Not all of these or­ders are per­sons in the sense of pos­sess­ing in­di­vid­ual pow­ers of choice. Es­pe­cially do the last four seem to be wholly au­to­matic and me­chan­i­cal in re­sponse to the im­pulses of their su­pe­ri­ors and in re­ac­tion to ex­ist­ing en­ergy con­di­tions. But though such re­sponse ap­pears wholly mech­a­nis­tic, it is not; they may seem to be au­toma­tons, but all of them dis­close the dif­fer­en­tial func­tion of in­tel­li­gence.

29:4.13Per­son­al­ity is not nec­es­sar­ily a con­comi­tant of mind. Mind can think even when de­prived of all power of choice, as in nu­mer­ous of the lower types of an­i­mals and in cer­tain of these sub­or­di­nate phys­i­cal con­trol­lers. Many of these more au­to­matic reg­u­la­tors of phys­i­cal power are not per­sons in any sense of the term. They are not en­dowed with will and in­de­pen­dence of de­ci­sion, be­ing wholly sub­servient to the me­chan­i­cal per­fec­tion of de­sign for the tasks of their al­lot­ment. Nonethe­less all of them are highly in­tel­li­gent be­ings.

29:4.14The phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are chiefly oc­cu­pied in the ad­just­ment of ba­sic en­er­gies undis­cov­ered on Uran­tia. These un­known en­er­gies are very es­sen­tial to the in­ter­plan­e­tary sys­tem of trans­port and to cer­tain tech­niques of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. When we lay lines of en­ergy for the pur­pose of con­vey­ing sound equiv­a­lents or of ex­tend­ing vi­sion, these undis­cov­ered forms of en­ergy are uti­lized by the liv­ing phys­i­cal con­trol­lers and their as­so­ciates. These same en­er­gies are also, on oc­ca­sion, used by the mid­way crea­tures in their rou­tine work.

29:4.151. As­so­ciate Power Di­rec­tors. These mar­velously ef­fi­cient be­ings are in­trusted with the as­sign­ment and dis­patch of all or­ders of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers in ac­cor­dance with the ever-shift­ing needs of the con­stantly chang­ing en­ergy sta­tus of the realms. The vast re­serves of the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are main­tained on the head­quar­ters worlds of the mi­nor sec­tors, and from these con­cen­tra­tion points they are pe­ri­od­i­cally dis­patched by the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors to the head­quar­ters of the uni­verses, con­stel­la­tions, and sys­tems, and to the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. When thus as­signed, the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are pro­vi­sion­ally sub­ject to the or­ders of the di­vine ex­e­cu­tion­ers of the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions but are oth­er­wise solely amenable to their as­so­ciate di­rec­tors and to the Su­preme Power Cen­ters.

29:4.16Three mil­lion as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors are as­signed to each of the Or­von­ton mi­nor sec­tors, mak­ing a to­tal of three bil­lion as the super­uni­verse quota of these amaz­ingly ver­sa­tile be­ings. Their own re­serves are main­tained on these same mi­nor sec­tor worlds, where they also serve as in­struc­tors of all who study the sci­ences of the tech­niques of in­tel­li­gent en­ergy con­trol and trans­mu­ta­tion.

29:4.17These di­rec­tors al­ter­nate pe­ri­ods of ex­ec­u­tive ser­vice in the mi­nor sec­tors with equal pe­ri­ods of in­spec­tion ser­vice to the realms of space. At least one act­ing in­spec­tor is al­ways pres­ent in each lo­cal sys­tem, main­tain­ing head­quar­ters on its cap­i­tal sphere. They keep the whole vast liv­ing en­ergy ag­gre­ga­tion in har­mo­nious syn­chrony.

29:4.182. Me­chan­i­cal Con­trol­lers. These are the ex­ceed­ingly ver­sa­tile and mo­bile as­sis­tants of the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors. Tril­lions upon tril­lions of them are com­mis­sioned in Ensa, your mi­nor sec­tor. These be­ings are called me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers be­cause they are so com­pletely dom­i­nated by their su­pe­ri­ors, so fully sub­servient to the will of the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors. Nev­er­the­less they are, them­selves, very in­tel­li­gent, and their work, though me­chan­i­cal and mat­ter-of-fact in na­ture, is skill­fully per­formed.

29:4.19Of all the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers as­signed to the in­hab­ited worlds, the me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers are by far the most pow­er­ful. Pos­sess­ing the liv­ing en­dow­ment of anti­grav­ity in ex­cess of all other be­ings, each con­trol­ler has a grav­ity re­sis­tance equaled only by enor­mous spheres re­volv­ing at tremen­dous ve­loc­ity. Ten of these con­trol­lers are now sta­tioned on Uran­tia, and one of their most im­por­tant plan­e­tary ac­tiv­i­ties is to fa­cil­i­tate the de­par­ture of se­raphic trans­ports. In so func­tion­ing, all ten of the me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers act in uni­son while a bat­tery of one thou­sand en­ergy trans­mit­ters pro­vides the ini­tial mo­men­tum for the se­raphic de­par­ture.

29:4.20The me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers are com­pe­tent to di­rec­tion­ize the flow of en­ergy and to fa­cil­i­tate its con­cen­tra­tion into the spe­cial­ized cur­rents or cir­cuits. These mighty be­ings have much to do with the seg­re­ga­tion, di­rec­tion­iza­tion, and in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of the phys­i­cal en­er­gies and with the equal­iza­tion of the pres­sures of the in­ter­plan­e­tary cir­cuits. They are ex­pert in the ma­nip­u­la­tion of twenty-one of the thirty phys­i­cal en­er­gies of space, con­sti­tut­ing the power charge of a super­uni­verse. They are also able to ac­com­plish much to­wards the man­age­ment and con­trol of six of the nine more sub­tle forms of phys­i­cal en­ergy. By plac­ing these con­trol­lers in proper tech­ni­cal re­la­tion­ship to each other and to cer­tain of the power cen­ters, the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors are en­abled to ef­fect un­be­liev­able changes in power ad­just­ment and en­ergy con­trol.

29:4.21The Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers of­ten func­tion in bat­ter­ies of hun­dreds, thou­sands, and even mil­lions and by vary­ing their po­si­tions and for­ma­tions are able to ef­fect en­ergy con­trol in a col­lec­tive as well as an in­di­vid­ual ca­pac­ity. As re­quire­ments vary, they can up­step and ac­cel­er­ate the en­ergy vol­ume and move­ment or de­tain, con­dense, and re­tard the en­ergy cur­rents. They in­flu­ence en­ergy and power trans­for­ma­tions some­what as so-called cat­alytic agents aug­ment chem­i­cal re­ac­tions. They func­tion by in­her­ent abil­ity and in co-op­er­a­tion with the Su­preme Power Cen­ters.

29:4.223. En­ergy Trans­form­ers. The num­ber of these be­ings in a super­uni­verse is un­be­liev­able. There are al­most one mil­lion in Sa­ta­nia alone, and the usual quota is one hun­dred for each in­hab­ited world.

29:4.23The en­ergy trans­form­ers are the con­joint cre­ation of the Seven Su­preme Power Di­rec­tors and the Seven Cen­ter Super­vi­sors. They are among the more per­sonal or­ders of phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, and ex­cept when an as­so­ciate power di­rec­tor is pres­ent on an in­hab­ited world, the trans­form­ers are in com­mand. They are the plan­e­tary in­spec­tors of all de­part­ing se­raphic trans­ports. All classes of ce­les­tial life can uti­lize the less per­sonal or­ders of the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers only by li­ai­son with the more per­sonal or­ders of the as­so­ciate di­rec­tors and the en­ergy trans­form­ers.

29:4.24These trans­form­ers are pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive liv­ing switches, be­ing able to dis­pose them­selves for or against a given power dis­po­si­tion or di­rec­tion­iza­tion. They are also skill­ful in their ef­forts to in­su­late the plan­ets against the pow­er­ful en­ergy streams pass­ing be­tween gi­gan­tic plan­e­tary and starry neigh­bors. Their en­ergy-trans­mu­tive at­tri­butes ren­der them most ser­vice­able in the im­por­tant task of main­tain­ing uni­ver­sal en­ergy bal­ance, or power equi­lib­rium. At one time they seem to con­sume or store en­ergy; at other times they ap­pear to ex­ude or lib­er­ate en­ergy. The trans­form­ers are able to in­crease or to di­min­ish the “stor­age-bat­tery” po­ten­tial of the liv­ing and dead en­er­gies of their re­spec­tive realms. But they deal only with phys­i­cal and semi­ma­te­rial en­er­gies, they do not di­rectly func­tion in the do­main of life, nei­ther do they change the forms of liv­ing be­ings.

29:4.25In some re­spects the en­ergy trans­form­ers are the most re­mark­able and mys­te­ri­ous of all semi­ma­te­rial liv­ing crea­tures. They are in some un­known man­ner phys­i­cally dif­fer­en­ti­ated, and by vary­ing their li­ai­son re­la­tion­ships, they are able to ex­ert a pro­found in­flu­ence upon the en­ergy which passes through their as­so­ci­ated pres­ences. The sta­tus of the phys­i­cal realms seems to un­dergo a trans­for­ma­tion un­der their skill­ful ma­nip­u­la­tion. They can and do change the phys­i­cal form of the en­er­gies of space. With the aid of their fel­low con­trol­lers they are ac­tu­ally able to change the form and po­ten­tial of twenty-seven of the thirty phys­i­cal en­er­gies of the super­uni­verse power charge. That three of these en­er­gies are be­yond their con­trol proves that they are not in­stru­men­tal­i­ties of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

29:4.26The re­main­ing four groups of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers are hardly per­sons within any ac­cept­able def­i­ni­tion of that word. These trans­mit­ters, as­so­ci­a­tors, dis­so­ci­a­tors, and fran­dalanks are wholly au­to­matic in their re­ac­tions; nev­er­the­less they are in ev­ery sense in­tel­li­gent. We are greatly lim­ited in our knowl­edge of these won­der­ful en­ti­ties be­cause we can­not com­mu­ni­cate with them. They ap­pear to un­der­stand the lan­guage of the realm, but they can­not com­mu­ni­cate with us. They seem fully able to re­ceive our com­mu­ni­ca­tions but quite pow­er­less to make re­sponse.

29:4.274. En­ergy Trans­mit­ters. These be­ings func­tion chiefly, but not wholly, in an in­tra­plan­e­tary ca­pac­ity. They are mar­velous dis­patch­ers of en­ergy as it is man­i­fested on the in­di­vid­ual worlds.

29:4.28When en­ergy is to be di­verted to a new cir­cuit, the trans­mit­ters de­ploy them­selves in a line along the de­sired en­ergy path, and by virtue of their unique at­tri­butes of en­ergy-at­trac­tion, they can ac­tu­ally in­duce an in­creased en­ergy flow in the de­sired di­rec­tion. This they do just as lit­er­ally as cer­tain metal­lic cir­cuits di­rec­tion­ize the flow of cer­tain forms of elec­tric en­ergy; and they are liv­ing super­con­duc­tors for more than half of the thirty forms of phys­i­cal en­ergy.

29:4.29Trans­mit­ters form skill­ful li­aisons which are ef­fec­tive in re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing the weak­en­ing cur­rents of spe­cial­ized en­ergy pass­ing from planet to planet and from sta­tion to sta­tion on an in­di­vid­ual planet. They can de­tect cur­rents which are much too fee­ble to be rec­og­nized by any other type of liv­ing be­ing, and they can so aug­ment these en­er­gies that the ac­com­pa­ny­ing mes­sage be­comes per­fectly in­tel­li­gi­ble. Their ser­vices are in­valu­able to the broad­cast re­ceivers.

29:4.30En­ergy trans­mit­ters can func­tion with re­gard to all forms of com­mu­ni­ca­ble per­cep­tion; they can ren­der a dis­tant scene “vis­i­ble” as well as a dis­tant sound “au­di­ble.” They pro­vide the emer­gency lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the lo­cal sys­tems and on the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. These ser­vices must be used by prac­ti­cally all crea­tures for pur­poses of com­mu­ni­ca­tion out­side of the reg­u­larly es­tab­lished cir­cuits.

29:4.31These be­ings, to­gether with the en­ergy trans­form­ers, are in­dis­pens­able to the main­te­nance of mor­tal ex­is­tence on those worlds hav­ing an im­pov­er­ished at­mo­sphere, and they are an in­te­gral part of the tech­nique of life on the non­breath­ing plan­ets.

29:4.325. Pri­mary As­so­ci­a­tors. These in­ter­est­ing and in­valu­able en­ti­ties are mas­terly en­ergy con­ser­va­tors and cus­to­di­ans. Some­what as a plant stores so­lar light, so do these liv­ing or­gan­isms store en­ergy dur­ing times of plus man­i­fes­ta­tions. They work on a gi­gan­tic scale, con­vert­ing the en­er­gies of space into a phys­i­cal state not known on Uran­tia. They are also able to carry for­ward these trans­for­ma­tions to the point of pro­duc­ing some of the prim­i­tive units of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence. These be­ings sim­ply act by their pres­ence. They are in no way ex­hausted or de­pleted by this func­tion; they act like liv­ing cat­alytic agents.

29:4.33Dur­ing sea­sons of mi­nus man­i­fes­ta­tions they are em­pow­ered to re­lease these ac­cu­mu­lated en­er­gies. But your knowl­edge of en­ergy and mat­ter is not suf­fi­ciently ad­vanced to make it pos­si­ble to ex­plain the tech­nique of this phase of their work. They al­ways la­bor in com­pli­ance with uni­ver­sal law, han­dling and ma­nip­u­lat­ing atoms, elec­trons, and ul­ti­ma­tons much as you ma­neu­ver ad­justable type to make the same al­pha­bet­i­cal sym­bols tell vastly dif­fer­ent sto­ries.

29:4.34The as­so­ci­a­tors are the first group of life to ap­pear on an or­ga­niz­ing ma­te­rial sphere, and they can func­tion at phys­i­cal tem­per­a­tures which you would re­gard as ut­terly in­com­pat­i­ble with the ex­is­tence of liv­ing be­ings. They rep­re­sent an or­der of life which is sim­ply be­yond the range of hu­man imag­i­na­tion. To­gether with their co-work­ers, the dis­so­ci­a­tors, they are the most slav­ish of all in­tel­li­gent crea­tures.

29:4.356. Sec­ondary Dis­so­ci­a­tors. Com­pared with the pri­mary as­so­ci­a­tors, these be­ings of enor­mous anti­grav­ity en­dow­ment are the re­verse work­ers. There is never any dan­ger that the spe­cial or mod­i­fied forms of phys­i­cal en­ergy on the lo­cal worlds or in the lo­cal sys­tems will be ex­hausted, for these liv­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions are en­dowed with the unique power of evolv­ing lim­it­less sup­plies of en­ergy. They are chiefly con­cerned with the evo­lu­tion of a form of en­ergy which is hardly known on Uran­tia from a form of mat­ter which is rec­og­nized still less. They are truly the al­chemists of space and the won­der-work­ers of time. But in all the won­ders they work, they never transgress the man­dates of Cos­mic Su­prem­acy.

29:4.367. The Fran­dalanks. These be­ings are the joint cre­ation of all three or­ders of en­ergy-con­trol be­ings: the pri­mary and sec­ondary force or­ga­niz­ers and the power di­rec­tors. Fran­dalanks are the most nu­mer­ous of all the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers; the num­ber func­tion­ing in Sa­ta­nia alone is be­yond your nu­mer­i­cal con­cept. They are sta­tioned on all in­hab­ited worlds and are al­ways at­tached to the higher or­ders of phys­i­cal con­trol­lers. They func­tion in­ter­change­ably in the cen­tral and super­uni­verses and in the do­mains of outer space.

29:4.37The fran­dalanks are cre­ated in thirty di­vi­sions, one for each form of ba­sic uni­verse force, and they func­tion ex­clu­sively as liv­ing and au­to­matic pres­ence, pres­sure, and ve­loc­ity gauges. These liv­ing barom­e­ters are solely con­cerned with the au­to­matic and unerring reg­is­tra­tion of the sta­tus of all forms of force-en­ergy. They are to the phys­i­cal uni­verse what the vast re­flec­tiv­ity mech­a­nism is to the minded uni­verse. The fran­dalanks that reg­is­ter time in ad­di­tion to quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive en­ergy pres­ence are called chro­nol­deks.

29:4.38I rec­og­nize that the fran­dalanks are in­tel­li­gent, but I can­not clas­sify them as other than liv­ing ma­chines. About the only way I can help you to un­der­stand these liv­ing mech­a­nisms is to com­pare them to your own me­chan­i­cal con­trivances which per­form with al­most in­tel­li­gent­like pre­ci­sion and ac­cu­racy. Then if you would con­ceive of these be­ings, draw upon your imag­i­na­tion to the ex­tent of rec­og­niz­ing that in the grand uni­verse we ac­tu­ally have in­tel­li­gent and liv­ing mech­a­nisms (en­ti­ties) that can per­form more in­tri­cate tasks in­volv­ing more stu­pen­dous com­pu­ta­tions with even greater del­i­cacy of ac­cu­racy, even with ul­ti­macy of pre­ci­sion.

The 1955 readings