The Local Universe Sons of God

35:9.1The La­non­an­deks are the con­tin­u­ous rulers of the plan­ets and the ro­tat­ing sov­er­eigns of the sys­tems. Such a Son now rules on Je­ru­sem, the head­quar­ters of your lo­cal sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds.

35:9.2The Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns rule in com­mis­sions of two or three on the head­quar­ters of each sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds. The Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther names one of these La­non­an­deks as chief ev­ery dekamil­len­nium. Some­times no change in the head of the trio is made, the mat­ter be­ing en­tirely op­tional with the con­stel­la­tion rulers. Sys­tem gov­ern­ments do not sud­denly change in per­son­nel un­less a tragedy of some sort oc­curs.

35:9.3When Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns or as­sis­tants are re­called, their places are filled by se­lec­tions made by the su­preme coun­cil lo­cated on the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters from the re­serves of that or­der, a group which is larger on Eden­tia than the av­er­age in­di­cated.

35:9.4The su­preme La­non­an­dek coun­cils are sta­tioned on the var­i­ous con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters. Such a body is pre­sided over by the se­nior Most High as­so­ciate of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, while the ju­nior as­so­ciate super­vises the re­serves of the sec­ondary or­der.

35:9.5The Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns are true to their names; they are well-nigh sov­er­eign in the lo­cal af­fairs of the in­hab­ited worlds. They are al­most pa­ter­nal in their di­rec­tion of the Plan­e­tary Princes, the Ma­te­rial Sons, and the min­is­ter­ing spir­its. The per­sonal grasp of the sov­er­eign is all but com­plete. These rulers are not super­vised by Trin­ity ob­servers from the cen­tral uni­verse. They are the ex­ec­u­tive di­vi­sion of the lo­cal uni­verse, and as cus­to­di­ans of the en­force­ment of leg­isla­tive man­dates and as ex­ec­u­tives for the ap­pli­ca­tion of ju­di­cial ver­dicts, they pre­sent the one place in all uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion where per­sonal dis­loy­alty to the will of the Mi­chael Son could most eas­ily and read­ily in­trench it­self and seek to as­sert it­self.

35:9.6Our lo­cal uni­verse has been un­for­tu­nate in that over seven hun­dred Sons of the La­non­an­dek or­der have re­belled against the uni­verse gov­ern­ment, thus pre­cip­i­tat­ing con­fu­sion in sev­eral sys­tems and on nu­mer­ous plan­ets. Of this en­tire num­ber of fail­ures only three were Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns; prac­ti­cally all of these Sons be­longed to the sec­ond and third or­ders, Plan­e­tary Princes and ter­tiary La­non­an­deks.

35:9.7The large num­ber of these Sons who have lapsed from in­tegrity does not in­di­cate any fault in cre­ator­ship. They could have been made di­vinely per­fect, but they were so cre­ated that they might bet­ter un­der­stand, and draw near to, the evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures dwell­ing on the worlds of time and space.

35:9.8Of all the lo­cal uni­verses in Or­von­ton, our uni­verse has, with the ex­cep­tion of Henselon, lost the largest num­ber of this or­der of Sons. On Uversa it is the con­sen­sus that we have had so much ad­min­is­tra­tive trou­ble in Neb­a­don be­cause our Sons of the La­non­an­dek or­der have been cre­ated with such a large de­gree of per­sonal lib­erty in choos­ing and plan­ning. I do not make this ob­ser­va­tion by way of crit­i­cism. The Cre­ator of our uni­verse has full au­thor­ity and power to do this. It is the con­tention of our high rulers that, while such free-choos­ing Sons make ex­ces­sive trou­ble in the ear­lier ages of the uni­verse, when things are fully sifted and fi­nally set­tled, the gains of higher loy­alty and fuller vo­li­tional ser­vice on the part of these thor­oughly tested Sons will far more than com­pen­sate for the con­fu­sion and tribu­la­tions of ear­lier times.

35:9.9In the event of re­bel­lion on a sys­tem head­quar­ters, a new sov­er­eign is usu­ally in­stalled within a com­par­a­tively short time, but not so on the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. They are the com­po­nent units of the ma­te­rial cre­ation, and crea­ture free will is a fac­tor in the fi­nal ad­ju­di­ca­tion of all such prob­lems. Suc­ces­sor Plan­e­tary Princes are des­ig­nated for iso­lated worlds, plan­ets whose princes of au­thor­ity may have gone astray, but they do not as­sume ac­tive ruler­ship of such worlds un­til the re­sults of in­sur­rec­tion are par­tially over­come and re­moved by the re­me­dial mea­sures adopted by the Mel­chiz­e­deks and other min­is­ter­ing per­son­al­i­ties. Re­bel­lion by a Plan­e­tary Prince in­stantly iso­lates his planet; the lo­cal spir­i­tual cir­cuits are im­me­di­ately sev­ered. Only a be­stowal Son can re-es­tab­lish in­ter­plan­e­tary lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion on such a spir­i­tu­ally iso­lated world.

35:9.10There ex­ists a plan for sav­ing these way­ward and un­wise Sons, and many have availed them­selves of this mer­ci­ful pro­vi­sion; but never again may they func­tion in those po­si­tions wherein they de­faulted. Af­ter re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion they are as­signed to cus­to­dial du­ties and to de­part­ments of phys­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion.