The Seraphic Hosts

39:5.1These ser­a­phim main­tain head­quar­ters on the sys­tem cap­i­tals and, though closely as­so­ci­ated with the res­i­dent Adamic cit­i­zens, are pri­mar­ily as­signed to the ser­vice of the Plan­e­tary Adams, the bi­o­logic or phys­i­cal up­lifters of the ma­te­rial races on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. The min­is­ter­ing work of an­gels be­comes of in­creas­ing in­ter­est as it nears the in­hab­ited worlds, as it nears the ac­tual prob­lems faced by the men and women of time who are prepar­ing them­selves for the at­tempt to at­tain the goal of eter­nity.

39:5.2On Uran­tia the ma­jor­ity of the plan­e­tary helpers were re­moved upon the col­lapse of the Adamic regime, and the se­raphic super­vi­sion of your world de­volved to a greater ex­tent upon the ad­min­is­tra­tors, the tran­si­tion min­is­ters, and the guard­i­ans of des­tiny. But these se­raphic aids of your de­fault­ing Ma­te­rial Sons still serve Uran­tia in the fol­low­ing groups:

39:5.31. The Voices of the Gar­den. When the plan­e­tary course of hu­man evo­lu­tion is at­tain­ing its high­est bi­o­logic level, there al­ways ap­pear the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters, the Adams and Eves, to aug­ment the fur­ther evo­lu­tion of the races by an ac­tual con­tri­bu­tion of their su­pe­rior life plasm. The plan­e­tary head­quar­ters of such an Adam and Eve is usu­ally de­nom­i­nated the Gar­den of Eden, and their per­sonal ser­a­phim are of­ten known as the “voices of the Gar­den.” These ser­a­phim are of in­valu­able ser­vice to the Plan­e­tary Adams in all their projects for the phys­i­cal and in­tel­lec­tual up­step­ping of the evo­lu­tion­ary races. Af­ter the Adamic de­fault on Uran­tia, some of these ser­a­phim were left on the planet and were as­signed to Adam’s suc­ces­sors in au­thor­ity.

39:5.42. The Spir­its of Broth­er­hood. It should be ap­par­ent that, when an Adam and Eve ar­rive on an evo­lu­tion­ary world, the task of achiev­ing racial har­mony and so­cial co-op­er­a­tion among its di­verse races is one of con­sid­er­able pro­por­tions. Sel­dom do these races of dif­fer­ent col­ors and var­ied na­tures take kindly to the plan of hu­man broth­er­hood. These prim­i­tive men only come to re­al­ize the wis­dom of peace­ful in­teras­so­ci­a­tion as a re­sult of ripened hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence and through the faith­ful min­istry of the se­raphic spir­its of broth­er­hood. With­out the work of these ser­a­phim the ef­forts of the Ma­te­rial Sons to har­mo­nize and ad­vance the races of an evolv­ing world would be greatly de­layed. And had your Adam ad­hered to the orig­i­nal plan for the ad­vance­ment of Uran­tia, by this time these spir­its of broth­er­hood would have worked un­be­liev­able trans­for­ma­tions in the hu­man race. In view of the Adamic de­fault, it is in­deed re­mark­able that these se­raphic or­ders have been able to fos­ter and bring to re­al­iza­tion even as much of broth­er­hood as you now have on Uran­tia.

39:5.53. The Souls of Peace. The early mil­len­ni­ums of the up­ward striv­ings of evo­lu­tion­ary men are marked by many a strug­gle. Peace is not the nat­u­ral state of the ma­te­rial realms. The worlds first re­al­ize “peace on earth and good will among men” through the min­istry of the se­raphic souls of peace. Al­though these an­gels were largely thwarted in their early ef­forts on Uran­tia, Vevona, chief of the souls of peace in Adam’s day, was left on Uran­tia and is now at­tached to the staff of the res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral. And it was this same Vevona who, when Mi­chael was born, her­alded to the worlds, as the leader of the an­gelic host, “Glory to God in Ha­vona and on earth peace and good will among men.”

39:5.6In the more ad­vanced epochs of plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion these ser­a­phim are in­stru­men­tal in sup­plant­ing the atone­ment idea by the con­cept of di­vine at­tune­ment as a phi­los­o­phy of mor­tal sur­vival.

39:5.74. The Spir­its of Trust. Sus­pi­cion is the in­her­ent re­ac­tion of prim­i­tive men; the sur­vival strug­gles of the early ages do not nat­u­rally breed trust. Trust is a new hu­man ac­qui­si­tion brought about by the min­istry of these plan­e­tary ser­a­phim of the Adamic regime. It is their mis­sion to in­cul­cate trust into the minds of evolv­ing men. The Gods are very trust­ful; the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is will­ing freely to trust him­self—the Ad­juster—to man’s as­so­ci­a­tion.

39:5.8This en­tire group of ser­a­phim was trans­ferred to the new regime af­ter the Adamic mis­car­riage, and they have ever since con­tin­ued their labors on Uran­tia. And they have not been wholly un­suc­cess­ful since a civ­i­liza­tion is now evolv­ing which em­bod­ies much of their ide­als of con­fi­dence and trust.

39:5.9In the more ad­vanced plan­e­tary ages these ser­a­phim en­hance man’s ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the truth that un­cer­tainty is the se­cret of con­tented con­ti­nu­ity. They help the mor­tal philoso­phers to re­al­ize that, when ig­no­rance is es­sen­tial to suc­cess, it would be a colos­sal blun­der for the crea­ture to know the fu­ture. They heighten man’s taste for the sweet­ness of un­cer­tainty, for the ro­mance and charm of the in­def­i­nite and un­known fu­ture.

39:5.105. The Trans­port­ers. The plan­e­tary trans­port­ers serve the in­di­vid­ual worlds. The ma­jor­ity of en­ser­a­phimed be­ings brought to this planet are in tran­sit; they merely stop over; they are in cus­tody of their own spe­cial se­raphic trans­port­ers; but there are a large num­ber of such ser­a­phim sta­tioned on Uran­tia. These are the trans­port per­son­al­i­ties op­er­at­ing from the lo­cal plan­ets, as from Uran­tia to Je­ru­sem.

39:5.11Your con­ven­tional idea of an­gels has been de­rived in the fol­low­ing way: Dur­ing mo­ments just prior to phys­i­cal death a re­flec­tive phe­nom­e­non some­times oc­curs in the hu­man mind, and this dim­ming con­scious­ness seems to vi­su­al­ize some­thing of the form of the at­tend­ing an­gel, and this is im­me­di­ately trans­lated into terms of the ha­bit­ual con­cept of an­gels held in that in­di­vid­ual’s mind.

39:5.12The er­ro­neous idea that an­gels pos­sess wings is not wholly due to olden no­tions that they must have wings to fly through the air. Hu­man be­ings have some­times been per­mit­ted to ob­serve ser­a­phim that were be­ing pre­pared for trans­port ser­vice, and the tra­di­tions of these ex­pe­ri­ences have largely de­ter­mined the Uran­tian con­cept of an­gels. In ob­serv­ing a trans­port ser­a­phim be­ing made ready to re­ceive a pas­sen­ger for in­ter­plan­e­tary tran­sit, there may be seen what are ap­par­ently dou­ble sets of wings ex­tend­ing from the head to the foot of the an­gel. In re­al­ity these wings are en­ergy in­su­la­tors—fric­tion shields.

39:5.13When ce­les­tial be­ings are to be en­ser­a­phimed for trans­fer from one world to an­other, they are brought to the head­quar­ters of the sphere and, af­ter due reg­istry, are in­ducted into the tran­sit sleep. Mean­time, the trans­port ser­a­phim moves into a hor­i­zon­tal po­si­tion im­me­di­ately above the uni­verse en­ergy pole of the planet. While the en­ergy shields are wide open, the sleep­ing per­son­al­ity is skill­fully de­posited, by the of­fi­ci­at­ing se­raphic as­sis­tants, di­rectly on top of the trans­port an­gel. Then both the up­per and lower pairs of shields are care­fully closed and ad­justed.

39:5.14And now, un­der the in­flu­ence of the trans­form­ers and the trans­mit­ters, a strange meta­mor­pho­sis be­gins as the ser­a­phim is made ready to swing into the en­ergy cur­rents of the uni­verse cir­cuits. To out­ward ap­pear­ance the ser­a­phim grows pointed at both ex­trem­i­ties and be­comes so en­shrouded in a queer light of am­ber hue that very soon it is im­pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish the en­ser­a­phimed per­son­al­ity. When all is in readi­ness for de­par­ture, the chief of trans­port makes the proper in­spec­tion of the car­riage of life, car­ries out the rou­tine tests to as­cer­tain whether or not the an­gel is prop­erly en­cir­cuited, and then an­nounces that the trav­eler is prop­erly en­ser­a­phimed, that the en­er­gies are ad­justed, that the an­gel is in­su­lated, and that ev­ery­thing is in readi­ness for the de­part­ing flash. The me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers, two of them, next take their po­si­tions. By this time the trans­port ser­a­phim has be­come an al­most trans­par­ent, vi­brat­ing, tor­pedo-shaped out­line of glis­ten­ing lu­mi­nos­ity. Now the trans­port dis­patcher of the realm sum­mons the aux­il­iary bat­ter­ies of the liv­ing en­ergy trans­mit­ters, usu­ally one thou­sand in num­ber; as he an­nounces the des­ti­na­tion of the trans­port, he reaches out and touches the near point of the se­raphic car­riage, which shoots for­ward with light­ning­like speed, leav­ing a trail of ce­les­tial lu­mi­nos­ity as far as the plan­e­tary at­mo­spheric in­vest­ment ex­tends. In less than ten min­utes the mar­velous spec­ta­cle will be lost even to re­in­forced se­raphic vi­sion.

39:5.15While plan­e­tary space re­ports are re­ceived at noon at the merid­ian of the des­ig­nated spir­i­tual head­quar­ters, the trans­port­ers are dis­patched from this same place at mid­night. That is the most fa­vor­able time for de­par­ture and is the stan­dard hour when not oth­er­wise spec­i­fied.

39:5.166. The Re­cord­ers. These are the cus­to­di­ans of the ma­jor af­fairs of the planet as it func­tions as a part of the sys­tem, and as it is re­lated to, and con­cerned in, the uni­verse gov­ern­ment. They func­tion in the record­ing of plan­e­tary af­fairs but are not con­cerned with mat­ters of in­di­vid­ual life and ex­is­tence.

39:5.177. The Re­serves. The Sa­ta­nia re­serve corps of the plan­e­tary ser­a­phim is main­tained on Je­ru­sem in close as­so­ci­a­tion with the re­serves of the Ma­te­rial Sons. These abun­dant re­serves re­pletely pro­vide for ev­ery phase of the man­i­fold ac­tiv­i­ties of this se­raphic or­der. These an­gels are also the per­sonal mes­sage bear­ers of the lo­cal sys­tems. They serve tran­si­tion mor­tals, an­gels, and the Ma­te­rial Sons as well as oth­ers domi­ciled on the sys­tem head­quar­ters. While Uran­tia is, at pres­ent, out­side the spir­i­tual cir­cuits of Sa­ta­nia and Nor­la­ti­adek, you are oth­er­wise in in­ti­mate touch with in­ter­plan­e­tary af­fairs, for these mes­sen­gers from Je­ru­sem fre­quently come to this world as to all the other spheres of the sys­tem.