The Seraphic Hosts

39:2.1Su­pe­rior ser­a­phim re­ceive their name, not be­cause they are in any sense qual­i­ta­tively su­pe­rior to other or­ders of an­gels, but be­cause they are in charge of the higher ac­tiv­i­ties of a lo­cal uni­verse. Very many of the first two groups of this se­raphic corps are at­tain­ment ser­a­phim, an­gels who have served in all phases of train­ing and have re­turned to a glo­ri­fied as­sign­ment as di­rec­tors of their kind in the spheres of their ear­lier ac­tiv­i­ties. Be­ing a young uni­verse, Neb­a­don does not have many of this or­der.

39:2.2The su­pe­rior ser­a­phim func­tion in the fol­low­ing seven groups:

39:2.31. The In­tel­li­gence Corps. These ser­a­phim be­long to the per­sonal staff of Ga­briel, the Bright and Morn­ing Star. They range the lo­cal uni­verse gath­er­ing the in­for­ma­tion of the realms for his guid­ance in the coun­cils of Neb­a­don. They are the in­tel­li­gence corps of the mighty hosts over which Ga­briel pre­sides as vicegerent of the Mas­ter Son. These ser­a­phim are not di­rectly af­fil­i­ated with ei­ther the sys­tems or the con­stel­la­tions, and their in­for­ma­tion pours in di­rect to Sal­ving­ton upon a con­tin­u­ous, di­rect, and in­de­pen­dent cir­cuit.

39:2.4The in­tel­li­gence corps of the var­i­ous lo­cal uni­verses can and do in­ter­com­mu­ni­cate but only within a given super­uni­verse. There is a dif­fer­en­tial of en­ergy which ef­fec­tively seg­re­gates the busi­ness and trans­ac­tions of the var­i­ous super­gov­ern­ments. One super­uni­verse can or­di­nar­ily com­mu­ni­cate with an­other super­uni­verse only through the pro­vi­sions and fa­cil­i­ties of the Par­a­dise clear­ing­house.

39:2.52. The Voice of Mercy. Mercy is the keynote of se­raphic ser­vice and an­gelic min­istry. It is there­fore fit­ting that there should be a corps of an­gels who, in a spe­cial man­ner, por­tray mercy. These ser­a­phim are the real mercy min­is­ters of the lo­cal uni­verses. They are the in­spired lead­ers who fos­ter the higher im­pulses and holier emo­tions of men and an­gels. The di­rec­tors of these le­gions are now al­ways com­ple­tion ser­a­phim who are also grad­u­ate guard­i­ans of mor­tal des­tiny; that is, each an­gelic pair has guided at least one soul of an­i­mal ori­gin dur­ing the life in the flesh and has sub­se­quently tra­versed the cir­cles of Seraph­ing­ton and has been mus­tered into the Se­raphic Corps of Com­ple­tion.

39:2.63. Spirit Co-or­di­na­tors. The third group of su­pe­rior ser­a­phim are based on Sal­ving­ton but func­tion in the lo­cal uni­verse any­where they can be of fruit­ful ser­vice. While their tasks are es­sen­tially spir­i­tual and there­fore be­yond the real un­der­stand­ing of hu­man minds, you will per­haps grasp some­thing of their min­istry to mor­tals if it is ex­plained that these an­gels are in­trusted with the task of prepar­ing the as­cen­dant so­journ­ers on Sal­ving­ton for their last tran­si­tion in the lo­cal uni­verse—from the high­est mor­ontia level to the sta­tus of new­born spirit be­ings. As the mind plan­ners on the man­sion worlds help the sur­viv­ing crea­ture to ad­just to, and make ef­fec­tive use of, the po­ten­tials of mor­ontia mind, so do these ser­a­phim in­struct the mor­ontia grad­u­ates on Sal­ving­ton re­gard­ing the newly at­tained ca­pac­i­ties of the mind of the spirit. And they serve the as­cen­dant mor­tals in many other ways.

39:2.74. As­sis­tant Teach­ers. The as­sis­tant teach­ers are the helpers and as­so­ciates of their fel­low ser­a­phim, the teach­ing coun­selors. They are also in­di­vid­u­ally con­nected with the ex­ten­sive ed­u­ca­tional en­ter­prises of the lo­cal uni­verse, es­pe­cially with the sev­en­fold scheme of train­ing op­er­a­tive on the man­sion worlds of the lo­cal sys­tems. A mar­velous corps of this or­der of ser­a­phim func­tions on Uran­tia for the pur­pose of fos­ter­ing and fur­ther­ing the cause of truth and righ­teous­ness.

39:2.85. The Trans­port­ers. All groups of min­is­ter­ing spir­its have their trans­port corps, an­gelic or­ders ded­i­cated to the min­istry of trans­port­ing those per­son­al­i­ties who are un­able, of them­selves, to jour­ney from one sphere to an­other. The fifth group of the su­pe­rior ser­a­phim are head­quar­tered on Sal­ving­ton and serve as space tra­versers to and from the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verse. Like other sub­di­vi­sions of the su­pe­rior ser­a­phim, some were cre­ated as such while oth­ers have risen from the lower or less en­dowed groups.

39:2.9The “en­ergy range” of ser­a­phim is wholly ad­e­quate for lo­cal uni­verse and even for super­uni­verse re­quire­ments, but they could never with­stand the en­ergy de­mands en­tailed by such a long jour­ney as that from Uversa to Ha­vona. Such an ex­haus­tive jour­ney re­quires the spe­cial pow­ers of a pri­mary se­con­a­phim of trans­port en­dow­ments. Trans­port­ers take on en­ergy for flight while in tran­sit and re­cu­per­ate per­sonal power at the end of the jour­ney.

39:2.10Even on Sal­ving­ton as­cend­ing mor­tals do not pos­sess per­sonal tran­sit forms. As­cend­ers must de­pend upon se­raphic trans­port in ad­vanc­ing from world to world un­til af­ter the last rest of sleep on the in­ner cir­cle of Ha­vona and the eter­nal awak­en­ing on Par­a­dise. Sub­se­quently you will not be de­pen­dent on an­gels for trans­port from uni­verse to uni­verse.

39:2.11The pro­cess of be­ing en­ser­a­phimed is not un­like the ex­pe­ri­ence of death or sleep ex­cept that there is an au­to­matic time el­e­ment in the tran­sit slum­ber. You are con­sciously un­con­scious dur­ing se­raphic rest. But the Thought Ad­juster is wholly and fully con­scious, in fact, ex­cep­tion­ally ef­fi­cient since you are un­able to op­pose, re­sist, or oth­er­wise hin­der cre­ative and trans­form­ing work.

39:2.12When en­ser­a­phimed, you go to sleep for a spec­i­fied time, and you will awake at the des­ig­nated mo­ment. The length of a jour­ney when in tran­sit sleep is im­ma­te­rial. You are not di­rectly aware of the pass­ing of time. It is as if you went to sleep on a trans­port ve­hi­cle in one city and, af­ter rest­ing in peace­ful slum­ber all night, awak­ened in an­other and dis­tant metropo­lis. You jour­neyed while you slum­bered. And so you take flight through space, en­ser­a­phimed, while you rest—sleep. The tran­sit sleep is in­duced by the li­ai­son be­tween the Ad­justers and the se­raphic trans­port­ers.

39:2.13The an­gels can­not trans­port com­bus­tion bod­ies—flesh and blood—such as you now have, but they can trans­port all oth­ers, from the low­est mor­ontia to the higher spirit forms. They do not func­tion in the event of nat­u­ral death. When you fin­ish your earthly ca­reer, your body re­mains on this planet. Your Thought Ad­juster pro­ceeds to the bo­som of the Fa­ther, and these an­gels are not di­rectly con­cerned in your sub­se­quent per­son­al­ity re­assem­bly on the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion man­sion world. There your new body is a mor­ontia form, one that can en­seraphim. You “sow a mor­tal body” in the grave; you “reap a mor­ontia form” on the man­sion worlds.

39:2.146. The Re­cord­ers. These per­son­al­i­ties are es­pe­cially con­cerned with the re­cep­tion, fil­ing, and re­dis­patch of the rec­ords of Sal­ving­ton and its as­so­ci­ated worlds. They also serve as spe­cial re­cord­ers for res­i­dent groups of super­uni­verse and higher per­son­al­i­ties and as clerks of the courts of Sal­ving­ton and sec­re­taries to the rulers thereof.

39:2.15Broad­cast­ers—re­ceivers and dis­patch­ers—are a spe­cial­ized sub­di­vi­sion of the se­raphic re­cord­ers, be­ing con­cerned with the dis­patch of rec­ords and with the dis­sem­i­na­tion of es­sen­tial in­for­ma­tion. Their work is of a high or­der, be­ing so mul­ti­cir­cuited that 144,000 mes­sages can si­mul­ta­ne­ously tra­verse the same lines of en­ergy. They adapt the higher ideo­graphic tech­niques of the super­aphic chief re­cord­ers and with these com­mon sym­bols main­tain re­cip­ro­cal con­tact with both the in­tel­li­gence co-or­di­na­tors of the ter­tiary super­na­phim and the glo­ri­fied in­tel­li­gence co-or­di­na­tors of the Se­raphic Corps of Com­ple­tion.

39:2.16Se­raphic re­cord­ers of the su­pe­rior or­der thus ef­fect a close li­ai­son with the in­tel­li­gence corps of their own or­der and with all sub­or­di­nate re­cord­ers, while the broad­casts en­able them to main­tain con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the higher re­cord­ers of the super­uni­verse and, through this chan­nel, with the re­cord­ers of Ha­vona and the cus­to­di­ans of knowl­edge on Par­a­dise. Many of the su­pe­rior or­der of re­cord­ers are ser­a­phim as­cended from sim­i­lar du­ties in lower sec­tions of the uni­verse.

39:2.177. The Re­serves. Large re­serves of all types of the su­pe­rior ser­a­phim are held on Sal­ving­ton, in­stantly avail­able for dis­patch to the far­ther­most worlds of Neb­a­don as they are req­ui­si­tioned by the di­rec­tors of as­sign­ment or upon the re­quest of the uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tors. The re­serves of su­pe­rior ser­a­phim also fur­nish mes­sen­ger aids upon req­ui­si­tion by the chief of the Bril­liant Evening Stars, who is in­trusted with the cus­tody and dis­patch of all per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tions. A lo­cal uni­verse is fully pro­vided with ad­e­quate means of in­ter­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but there is al­ways a residue of mes­sages which re­quires dis­patch by per­sonal mes­sen­gers.

39:2.18The ba­sic re­serves for the en­tire lo­cal uni­verse are held on the se­raphic worlds of Sal­ving­ton. This corps in­cludes all types of all groups of an­gels.