The Local System Administration

45:5.1The great di­vi­sions of ce­les­tial life have their head­quar­ters and im­mense pre­serves on Je­ru­sem, in­clud­ing the var­i­ous or­ders of di­vine Sons, high spir­its, super­an­gels, an­gels, and mid­way crea­tures. The cen­tral abode of this won­der­ful sec­tor is the chief tem­ple of the Ma­te­rial Sons.

45:5.2The do­main of the Adams is the cen­ter of at­trac­tion to all new ar­rivals on Je­ru­sem. It is an enor­mous area con­sist­ing of one thou­sand cen­ters, al­though each fam­ily of Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters lives on an es­tate of its own up to the time of the de­par­ture of its mem­bers for ser­vice on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of space or un­til their em­barka­tion upon the Par­a­dise-as­cen­sion ca­reer.

45:5.3These Ma­te­rial Sons are the high­est type of sex-re­pro­duc­ing be­ings to be found on the train­ing spheres of the evolv­ing uni­verses. And they are re­ally ma­te­rial; even the Plan­e­tary Adams and Eves are plainly vis­i­ble to the mor­tal races of the in­hab­ited worlds. These Ma­te­rial Sons are the last and phys­i­cal link in the chain of per­son­al­i­ties ex­tend­ing from di­vin­ity and per­fec­tion above down to hu­man­ity and ma­te­rial ex­is­tence be­low. These Sons pro­vide the in­hab­ited worlds with a mu­tu­ally con­tactable in­ter­me­di­ary be­tween the in­vis­i­ble Plan­e­tary Prince and the ma­te­rial crea­tures of the realms.

45:5.4At the last mil­len­nial reg­is­tra­tion on Sal­ving­ton there were of rec­ord in Neb­a­don 161,432,840 Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters of cit­i­zen­ship sta­tus on the lo­cal sys­tem cap­i­tals. The num­ber of Ma­te­rial Sons varies in the dif­fer­ent sys­tems, and their num­ber is be­ing con­stantly in­creased by nat­u­ral re­pro­duc­tion. In the ex­er­cise of their re­pro­duc­tive func­tions they are not guided wholly by the per­sonal de­sires of the con­tact­ing per­son­al­i­ties but also by the higher gov­ern­ing bod­ies and ad­vi­sory coun­cils.

45:5.5These Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters are the per­ma­nent in­hab­i­tants of Je­ru­sem and its as­so­ci­ated worlds. They oc­cupy vast es­tates on Je­ru­sem and par­tic­i­pate lib­er­ally in the lo­cal man­age­ment of the cap­i­tal sphere, ad­min­is­ter­ing prac­ti­cally all rou­tine af­fairs with the as­sis­tance of the mid­way­ers and the as­cend­ers.

45:5.6On Je­ru­sem these re­pro­duc­ing Sons are per­mit­ted to ex­per­i­ment with the ide­als of self-gov­ern­ment af­ter the man­ner of the Mel­chiz­e­deks, and they are achiev­ing a very high type of so­ci­ety. The higher or­ders of son­ship re­serve the veto func­tions of the realm, but in nearly ev­ery re­spect the Je­ru­sem Adamites gov­ern them­selves by uni­ver­sal suf­frage and rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment. Some­time they hope to be granted vir­tu­ally com­plete au­ton­omy.

45:5.7The char­ac­ter of the ser­vice of the Ma­te­rial Sons is largely de­ter­mined by their ages. While they are not el­i­gi­ble for ad­mis­sion to the Mel­chiz­e­dek Uni­ver­sity of Sal­ving­ton—be­ing ma­te­rial and or­di­nar­ily lim­ited to cer­tain plan­ets—nev­er­the­less, the Mel­chiz­e­deks main­tain strong fac­ul­ties of teach­ers on the head­quar­ters of each sys­tem for the in­struc­tion of the younger gen­er­a­tions of Ma­te­rial Sons. The ed­u­ca­tional and spir­i­tual train­ing sys­tems pro­vided for the de­vel­op­ment of the younger Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters are the acme of per­fec­tion in scope, tech­nique, and prac­ti­ca­bil­ity.