The Seraphic Hosts

39:1.1These ser­a­phim are the high­est of the seven re­vealed or­ders of lo­cal uni­verse an­gels. They func­tion in seven groups, each of which is closely as­so­ci­ated with the an­gelic min­is­ters of the Se­raphic Corps of Com­ple­tion.

39:1.21. Son-Spirit Min­is­ters. The first group of the su­preme ser­a­phim are as­signed to the ser­vice of the high Sons and Spirit-ori­gin be­ings res­i­dent and func­tion­ing in the lo­cal uni­verse. This group of an­gelic min­is­ters also serve the Uni­verse Son and the Uni­verse Spirit and are closely af­fil­i­ated with the in­tel­li­gence corps of the Bright and Morn­ing Star, the uni­verse chief ex­ec­u­tive of the united wills of the Cre­ator Son and the Cre­ative Spirit.

39:1.3Be­ing of as­sign­ment to the high Sons and Spir­its, these ser­a­phim are nat­u­rally as­so­ci­ated with the far-flung ser­vices of the Par­a­dise Avo­nals, the di­vine off­spring of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit. The Par­a­dise Avo­nals are al­ways at­tended on all mag­is­te­rial and be­stowal mis­sions by this high and ex­pe­ri­enced or­der of ser­a­phim, who are at such times de­voted to or­ga­niz­ing and ad­min­is­ter­ing the spe­cial work con­nected with the ter­mi­na­tion of one plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tion and the in­au­gu­ra­tion of a new age. But they are not con­cerned in the work of ad­ju­di­ca­tion which might be in­ci­den­tal to such a change in dis­pen­sa­tions.

39:1.4Be­stowal At­ten­dants. Par­a­dise Avo­nals, but not Cre­ator Sons, when on a be­stowal mis­sion are al­ways ac­com­pa­nied by a corps of 144 be­stowal at­ten­dants. These 144 an­gels are the chiefs of all other Son-Spirit min­is­ters who may be as­so­ci­ated with a be­stowal mis­sion. There might pos­si­bly be le­gions of an­gels sub­ject to the com­mand of an in­car­nated Son of God on a plan­e­tary be­stowal, but all these ser­a­phim would be or­ga­nized and di­rected by the 144 be­stowal at­ten­dants. Higher or­ders of an­gels, super­na­phim and se­con­a­phim, might also form a part of the at­tend­ing host, and though their mis­sions are dis­tinct from those of the ser­a­phim, all these ac­tiv­i­ties would be co-or­di­nated by the be­stowal at­ten­dants.

39:1.5These be­stowal at­ten­dants are com­ple­tion ser­a­phim; they have all tra­versed the cir­cles of Seraph­ing­ton and have at­tained the Se­raphic Corps of Com­ple­tion. And they have been fur­ther es­pe­cially trained to meet the dif­fi­cul­ties and to cope with the emer­gen­cies as­so­ci­ated with the be­stowals of the Sons of God for the ad­vance­ment of the chil­dren of time. Such ser­a­phim have all achieved Par­a­dise and the per­sonal em­brace of the Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter, the Eter­nal Son.

39:1.6Ser­a­phim equally crave as­sign­ment to the mis­sions of the in­car­nated Sons and at­tach­ment as des­tiny guard­i­ans to the mor­tals of the realms; the lat­ter is the surest se­raphic pass­port to Par­a­dise, while the be­stowal at­ten­dants have achieved the high­est lo­cal uni­verse ser­vice of the com­ple­tion ser­a­phim of Par­a­dise at­tain­ment.

39:1.72. Court Ad­vis­ers. These are the se­raphic ad­vis­ers and helpers at­tached to all or­ders of ad­ju­di­ca­tion, from the con­cil­ia­tors up to the high­est tri­bu­nals of the realm. It is not the pur­pose of such tri­bu­nals to de­ter­mine puni­tive sen­tences but rather to ad­ju­di­cate hon­est dif­fer­ences of opin­ion and to de­cree the ev­er­last­ing sur­vival of as­cend­ing mor­tals. Herein lies the duty of the court ad­vis­ers: to see that all charges against mor­tal crea­tures are stated in jus­tice and ad­ju­di­cated in mercy. In this work they are closely as­so­ci­ated with the High Com­mis­sion­ers, Spirit-fused as­cen­dant mor­tals serv­ing in the lo­cal uni­verse.

39:1.8The se­raphic court ad­vis­ers serve ex­ten­sively as de­fend­ers of mor­tals. Not that there ever ex­ists any dis­po­si­tion to be un­fair to the lowly crea­tures of the realms, but while jus­tice de­mands the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of ev­ery de­fault in the climb to­wards di­vine per­fec­tion, mercy re­quires that ev­ery such mis­step be fairly ad­judged in ac­cor­dance with the crea­ture na­ture and the di­vine pur­pose. These an­gels are the ex­po­nents and ex­em­pli­fi­ca­tion of the el­e­ment of mercy in­her­ent in di­vine jus­tice—of fair­ness based on the knowl­edge of the un­der­ly­ing facts of per­sonal mo­tives and racial ten­den­cies.

39:1.9This or­der of an­gels serves from the coun­cils of the Plan­e­tary Princes to the high­est tri­bu­nals of the lo­cal uni­verse, while their as­so­ciates of the Se­raphic Corps of Com­ple­tion func­tion in the higher realms of Or­von­ton, even to the courts of the An­cients of Days on Uversa.

39:1.103. Uni­verse Ori­en­ta­tors. These are the true friends and post­grad­u­ate coun­selors of all those as­cend­ing crea­tures who are paus­ing for the last time on Sal­ving­ton, in their uni­verse of ori­gin, as they stand on the brink of the spirit ad­ven­ture stretch­ing out be­fore them in the vast super­uni­verse of Or­von­ton. And at such a time many an as­cender has a feel­ing which mor­tals could un­der­stand only by com­par­i­son with the hu­man emo­tion of nos­tal­gia. Be­hind lie the realms of achieve­ment, realms grown fa­mil­iar by long ser­vice and mor­ontia at­tain­ment; ahead lies the chal­leng­ing mys­tery of a greater and vaster uni­verse.

39:1.11It is the task of the uni­verse ori­en­ta­tors to fa­cil­i­tate the pas­sage of the as­cend­ing pil­grims from the at­tained to the un­attained level of uni­verse ser­vice, to help these pil­grims in mak­ing those kalei­do­scopic ad­just­ments in the com­pre­hen­sion of mean­ings and val­ues in­her­ent in the re­al­iza­tion that a first-stage spirit be­ing stands, not at the end and cli­max of the lo­cal uni­verse mor­ontia as­cent, but rather at the very bot­tom of the long lad­der of spir­i­tual as­cent to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther on Par­a­dise.

39:1.12Many of the Seraph­ing­ton grad­u­ates, mem­bers of the Se­raphic Corps of Com­ple­tion who are as­so­ci­ated with these ser­a­phim, en­gage in ex­ten­sive teach­ing in cer­tain Sal­ving­ton schools con­cerned with the prepa­ra­tion of the crea­tures of Neb­a­don for the re­la­tion­ships of the next uni­verse age.

39:1.134. The Teach­ing Coun­selors. These an­gels are the in­valu­able as­sis­tants of the spir­i­tual teach­ing corps of the lo­cal uni­verse. Teach­ing coun­selors are sec­re­taries to all or­ders of teach­ers, from the Mel­chiz­e­deks and the Trin­ity Teacher Sons down to the mor­ontia mor­tals who are as­signed as helpers to those of their kind who are just be­hind them in the scale of as­cen­dant life. You will first see these as­so­ciate teach­ing ser­a­phim on some one of the seven man­sion worlds sur­round­ing Je­ru­sem.

39:1.14These ser­a­phim be­come as­so­ciates of the di­vi­sion chiefs of the nu­mer­ous ed­u­ca­tional and train­ing in­sti­tu­tions of the lo­cal uni­verses, and they are at­tached in large num­bers to the fac­ul­ties of the seven train­ing worlds of the lo­cal sys­tems and of the sev­enty ed­u­ca­tional spheres of the con­stel­la­tions. These min­is­tra­tions ex­tend on down to the in­di­vid­ual worlds. Even the true and con­se­crated teach­ers of time are as­sisted, and of­ten at­tended, by these coun­selors of the su­preme ser­a­phim.

39:1.15The fourth crea­ture be­stowal of the Cre­ator Son was in the like­ness of a teach­ing coun­selor of the su­preme ser­a­phim of Neb­a­don.

39:1.165. Di­rec­tors of As­sign­ment. A body of 144 su­preme ser­a­phim is elected from time to time by the an­gels serv­ing on the evo­lu­tion­ary and on the ar­chi­tec­tural spheres of crea­ture habi­ta­tion. This is the high­est an­gelic coun­cil on any sphere, and it co-or­di­nates the self-di­rected phases of se­raphic ser­vice and as­sign­ment. These an­gels pre­side over all se­raphic as­sem­blies per­tain­ing to the line of duty or the call to wor­ship.

39:1.176. The Re­cord­ers. These are the of­fi­cial re­cord­ers for the su­preme ser­a­phim. Many of these high an­gels were born with their gifts fully de­vel­oped; oth­ers have qual­i­fied for their po­si­tions of trust and re­spon­si­bil­ity by dili­gent ap­pli­ca­tion to study and faith­ful per­for­mance of sim­i­lar du­ties while at­tached to lower or less re­spon­si­ble or­ders.

39:1.187. Un­at­tached Min­is­ters. Large num­bers of un­at­tached ser­a­phim of the su­preme or­der are self-di­rected servers on the ar­chi­tec­tural spheres and on the in­hab­ited plan­ets. Such min­is­ters vol­un­tar­ily meet the dif­fer­en­tial of de­mand for the ser­vice of the su­preme ser­a­phim, thus con­sti­tut­ing the gen­eral re­serve of this or­der.