The Constellations

43:1.1Eden­tia abounds in fas­ci­nat­ing high­lands, ex­ten­sive el­e­va­tions of phys­i­cal mat­ter crowned with mor­ontia life and over­spread with spir­i­tual glory, but there are no rugged moun­tain ranges such as ap­pear on Uran­tia. There are tens of thou­sands of sparkling lakes and thou­sands upon thou­sands of in­ter­con­nect­ing streams, but there are no great oceans nor tor­ren­tial rivers. Only the high­lands are de­void of these sur­face streams.

43:1.2The wa­ter of Eden­tia and sim­i­lar ar­chi­tec­tural spheres is no dif­fer­ent from the wa­ter of the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets. The wa­ter sys­tems of such spheres are both sur­face and sub­ter­ranean, and the mois­ture is in con­stant cir­cu­la­tion. Eden­tia can be cir­cum­nav­i­gated via these var­i­ous wa­ter routes, though the chief chan­nel of trans­porta­tion is the at­mo­sphere. Spirit be­ings would nat­u­rally travel above the sur­face of the sphere, while the mor­ontia and ma­te­rial be­ings make use of ma­te­rial and semi­ma­te­rial means to ne­go­ti­ate at­mo­spheric pas­sage.

43:1.3Eden­tia and its as­so­ci­ated worlds have a true at­mo­sphere, the usual three-gas mix­ture which is char­ac­ter­is­tic of such ar­chi­tec­tural cre­ations, and which em­bod­ies the two el­e­ments of Uran­tian at­mo­sphere plus that mor­ontia gas suit­able for the res­pi­ra­tion of mor­ontia crea­tures. But while this at­mo­sphere is both ma­te­rial and mor­ontial, there are no storms or hur­ri­canes; nei­ther is there sum­mer nor win­ter. This ab­sence of at­mo­spheric dis­tur­bances and of sea­sonal vari­a­tion makes it pos­si­ble to em­bel­lish all out­doors on these es­pe­cially cre­ated worlds.

43:1.4The Eden­tia high­lands are mag­nif­i­cent phys­i­cal fea­tures, and their beauty is en­hanced by the end­less pro­fu­sion of life which abounds through­out their length and breadth. Ex­cept­ing a few rather iso­lated struc­tures, these high­lands con­tain no work of crea­ture hands. Ma­te­rial and mor­ontial or­na­men­ta­tions are lim­ited to the dwell­ing ar­eas. The lesser el­e­va­tions are the sites of spe­cial res­i­dences and are beau­ti­fully em­bel­lished with both bi­o­logic and mor­ontia art.

43:1.5Sit­u­ated on the sum­mit of the sev­enth high­land range are the res­ur­rec­tion halls of Eden­tia, wherein awaken the as­cend­ing mor­tals of the sec­ondary mod­i­fied or­der of as­cen­sion. These cham­bers of crea­ture re­assem­bly are un­der the super­vi­sion of the Mel­chiz­e­deks. The first of the re­ceiv­ing spheres of Eden­tia (like the planet Mel­chiz­e­dek near Sal­ving­ton) also has spe­cial res­ur­rec­tion halls, wherein the mor­tals of the mod­i­fied or­ders of as­cen­sion are re­assem­bled.

43:1.6The Mel­chiz­e­deks also main­tain two spe­cial col­leges on Eden­tia. One, the emer­gency school, is de­voted to the study of prob­lems grow­ing out of the Sa­ta­nia re­bel­lion. The other, the be­stowal school, is ded­i­cated to the mas­tery of the new prob­lems aris­ing out of the fact that Mi­chael made his fi­nal be­stowal on one of the worlds of Nor­la­ti­adek. This lat­ter col­lege was es­tab­lished al­most forty thou­sand years ago, im­me­di­ately af­ter the an­nounce­ment by Mi­chael that Uran­tia had been se­lected as the world for his fi­nal be­stowal.

43:1.7The sea of glass, the re­ceiv­ing area of Eden­tia, is near the ad­min­is­tra­tive cen­ter and is en­cir­cled by the head­quar­ters am­phithe­ater. Sur­round­ing this area are the gov­ern­ing cen­ters for the sev­enty di­vi­sions of con­stel­la­tion af­fairs. One half of Eden­tia is di­vided into sev­enty tri­an­gu­lar sec­tions, whose bound­aries con­verge at the head­quar­ters build­ings of their re­spec­tive sec­tors. The re­main­der of this sphere is one vast nat­u­ral park, the gar­dens of God.

43:1.8Dur­ing your pe­ri­odic vis­its to Eden­tia, though the en­tire planet is open to your in­spec­tion, most of your time will be spent in that ad­min­is­tra­tive tri­an­gle whose num­ber cor­re­sponds to that of your cur­rent res­i­den­tial world. You will al­ways be wel­come as an ob­server in the leg­isla­tive as­sem­blies.

43:1.9The mor­ontia area as­signed to as­cend­ing mor­tals res­i­dent on Eden­tia is lo­cated in the mid-zone of the thirty-fifth tri­an­gle ad­join­ing the head­quar­ters of the fi­nal­i­ters, sit­u­ated in the thirty-sixth tri­an­gle. The gen­eral head­quar­ters of the uni­v­i­ta­tia oc­cu­pies an enor­mous area in the mid-re­gion of the thirty-fourth tri­an­gle im­me­di­ately ad­join­ing the res­i­den­tial reser­va­tion of the mor­ontia cit­i­zens. From these ar­range­ments it may be seen that pro­vi­sion is made for the ac­com­mo­da­tion of at least sev­enty ma­jor di­vi­sions of ce­les­tial life, and also that each of these sev­enty tri­an­gu­lar ar­eas is cor­re­lated with some one of the sev­enty ma­jor spheres of mor­ontia train­ing.

43:1.10The Eden­tia sea of glass is one enor­mous cir­cu­lar crys­tal about one hun­dred miles in cir­cum­fer­ence and about thirty miles in depth. This mag­nif­i­cent crys­tal serves as the re­ceiv­ing field for all trans­port ser­a­phim and other be­ings ar­riv­ing from points out­side the sphere; such a sea of glass greatly fa­cil­i­tates the land­ing of trans­port ser­a­phim.

43:1.11A crys­tal field on this or­der is found on al­most all ar­chi­tec­tural worlds; and it serves many pur­poses aside from its dec­o­ra­tive value, be­ing uti­lized for por­tray­ing super­uni­verse re­flec­tiv­ity to as­sem­bled groups and as a fac­tor in the en­ergy-trans­for­ma­tion tech­nique for mod­i­fy­ing the cur­rents of space and for adapt­ing other in­com­ing phys­i­cal-en­ergy streams.