The Inhabited Worlds

49:5.1It will be some­what dif­fi­cult to make an ad­e­quate por­trayal of the plan­e­tary se­ries of mor­tals be­cause you know so lit­tle about them, and be­cause there are so many vari­a­tions. Mor­tal crea­tures may, how­ever, be stud­ied from nu­mer­ous view­points, among which are the fol­low­ing:

49:5.21. Ad­just­ment to plan­e­tary en­vi­ron­ment.

49:5.32. Brain-type se­ries.

49:5.43. Spirit-re­cep­tion se­ries.

49:5.54. Plan­e­tary-mor­tal epochs.

49:5.65. Crea­ture-kin­ship se­ri­als.

49:5.76. Ad­juster-fu­sion se­ries.

49:5.87. Tech­niques of ter­res­trial es­cape.

49:5.9The in­hab­ited spheres of the seven super­uni­verses are peo­pled with mor­tals who si­mul­ta­ne­ously clas­sify in some one or more cat­e­gories of each of these seven gen­er­al­ized classes of evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture life. But even these gen­eral clas­si­fi­ca­tions make no pro­vi­sion for such be­ings as mid­soniters nor for cer­tain other forms of in­tel­li­gent life. The in­hab­ited worlds, as they have been pre­sented in these nar­ra­tives, are peo­pled with evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tal crea­tures, but there are other life forms.

49:5.101. Ad­just­ment to plan­e­tary en­vi­ron­ment. There are three gen­eral groups of in­hab­ited worlds from the stand­point of the ad­just­ment of crea­ture life to the plan­e­tary en­vi­ron­ment: the nor­mal ad­just­ment group, the rad­i­cal ad­just­ment group, and the ex­per­i­men­tal group.

49:5.11Nor­mal ad­just­ments to plan­e­tary con­di­tions fol­low the gen­eral phys­i­cal pat­terns pre­vi­ously con­sid­ered. The worlds of the non­breathers typ­ify the rad­i­cal or ex­treme ad­just­ment, but other types are also in­cluded in this group. Ex­per­i­men­tal worlds are usu­ally ide­ally adapted to the typ­i­cal life forms, and on these dec­i­mal plan­ets the Life Car­ri­ers at­tempt to pro­duce ben­e­fi­cial vari­a­tions in the stan­dard life de­signs. Since your world is an ex­per­i­men­tal planet, it dif­fers markedly from its sis­ter spheres in Sa­ta­nia; many forms of life have ap­peared on Uran­tia that are not found else­where; like­wise are many com­mon species ab­sent from your planet.

49:5.12In the uni­verse of Neb­a­don, all the life-mod­i­fi­ca­tion worlds are se­ri­ally linked to­gether and con­sti­tute a spe­cial do­main of uni­verse af­fairs which is given at­ten­tion by des­ig­nated ad­min­is­tra­tors; and all of these ex­per­i­men­tal worlds are pe­ri­od­i­cally in­spected by a corps of uni­verse di­rec­tors whose chief is the vet­eran fi­nal­i­ter known in Sa­ta­nia as Taba­man­tia.

49:5.132. Brain-type se­ries. The one phys­i­cal uni­for­mity of mor­tals is the brain and ner­vous sys­tem; nev­er­the­less, there are three ba­sic or­ga­ni­za­tions of the brain mech­a­nism: the one-, the two-, and the three-brained types. Uran­tians are of the two-brained type, some­what more imag­i­na­tive, ad­ven­tur­ous, and phil­o­soph­i­cal than the one-brained mor­tals but some­what less spir­i­tual, eth­i­cal, and wor­ship­ful than the three-brained or­ders. These brain dif­fer­ences char­ac­ter­ize even the pre­hu­man an­i­mal ex­is­tences.

49:5.14From the two-hemi­sphere type of the Uran­tian cere­bral cor­tex you can, by anal­ogy, grasp some­thing of the one-brained type. The third brain of the three-brained or­ders is best con­ceived as an evolve­ment of your lower or rudi­men­tary form of brain, which is de­vel­oped to the point where it func­tions chiefly in con­trol of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties, leav­ing the two su­pe­rior brains free for higher en­gage­ments: one for in­tel­lec­tual func­tions and the other for the spir­i­tual-coun­ter­part­ing ac­tiv­i­ties of the Thought Ad­juster.

49:5.15While the ter­res­trial at­tain­ments of the one-brained races are slightly lim­ited in com­par­i­son with the two-brained or­ders, the older plan­ets of the three-brained group ex­hibit civ­i­liza­tions that would as­tound Uran­tians, and which would some­what shame yours by com­par­i­son. In me­chan­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and ma­te­rial civ­i­liza­tion, even in in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress, the two-brained mor­tal worlds are able to equal the three-brained spheres. But in the higher con­trol of mind and de­vel­op­ment of in­tel­lec­tual and spir­i­tual re­cip­ro­ca­tion, you are some­what in­fe­rior.

49:5.16All such com­par­a­tive es­ti­mates con­cern­ing the in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress or the spir­i­tual at­tain­ments of any world or group of worlds should in fair­ness rec­og­nize plan­e­tary age; much, very much, de­pends on age, the help of the bi­o­logic up­lifters, and the sub­se­quent mis­sions of the var­i­ous or­ders of the di­vine Sons.

49:5.17While the three-brained peo­ples are ca­pa­ble of a slightly higher plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion than ei­ther the one- or two-brained or­ders, all have the same type of life plasm and carry on plan­e­tary ac­tiv­i­ties in very sim­i­lar ways, much as do hu­man be­ings on Uran­tia. These three types of mor­tals are dis­tributed through­out the worlds of the lo­cal sys­tems. In the ma­jor­ity of cases plan­e­tary con­di­tions had very lit­tle to do with the de­ci­sions of the Life Car­ri­ers to project these var­ied or­ders of mor­tals on the dif­fer­ent worlds; it is a pre­rog­a­tive of the Life Car­ri­ers thus to plan and ex­e­cute.

49:5.18These three or­ders stand on an equal foot­ing in the as­cen­sion ca­reer. Each must tra­verse the same in­tel­lec­tual scale of de­vel­op­ment, and each must mas­ter the same spir­i­tual tests of pro­gres­sion. The sys­tem ad­min­is­tra­tion and the con­stel­la­tion over­con­trol of these dif­fer­ent worlds are uni­formly free from dis­crim­i­na­tion; even the regimes of the Plan­e­tary Princes are iden­ti­cal.

49:5.193. Spirit-re­cep­tion se­ries. There are three groups of mind de­sign as re­lated to con­tact with spirit af­fairs. This clas­si­fi­ca­tion does not re­fer to the one-, two-, and three-brained or­ders of mor­tals; it refers pri­mar­ily to gland chem­istry, more par­tic­u­larly to the or­ga­ni­za­tion of cer­tain glands com­pa­ra­ble to the pi­tu­itary bod­ies. The races on some worlds have one gland, on oth­ers two, as do Uran­tians, while on still other spheres the races have three of these unique bod­ies. The in­her­ent imag­i­na­tion and spir­i­tual re­cep­tiv­ity is def­i­nitely in­flu­enced by this dif­fer­en­tial chem­i­cal en­dow­ment.

49:5.20Of the spirit-re­cep­tion types, sixty-five per cent are of the sec­ond group, like the Uran­tia races. Twelve per cent are of the first type, nat­u­rally less re­cep­tive, while twenty-three per cent are more spir­i­tu­ally in­clined dur­ing ter­res­trial life. But such dis­tinc­tions do not sur­vive nat­u­ral death; all of these racial dif­fer­ences per­tain only to the life in the flesh.

49:5.214. Plan­e­tary-mor­tal epochs. This clas­si­fi­ca­tion rec­og­nizes the suc­ces­sion of tem­po­ral dis­pen­sa­tions as they af­fect man’s ter­res­trial sta­tus and his re­cep­tion of ce­les­tial min­istry.

49:5.22Life is ini­ti­ated on the plan­ets by the Life Car­ri­ers, who watch over its de­vel­op­ment un­til some­time af­ter the evo­lu­tion­ary ap­pear­ance of mor­tal man. Be­fore the Life Car­ri­ers leave a planet, they duly in­stall a Plan­e­tary Prince as ruler of the realm. With this ruler there ar­rives a full quota of sub­or­di­nate aux­il­iaries and min­is­ter­ing helpers, and the first ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the liv­ing and the dead is si­mul­ta­ne­ous with his ar­rival.

49:5.23With the emer­gence of hu­man group­ings, this Plan­e­tary Prince ar­rives to in­au­gu­rate hu­man civ­i­liza­tion and to fo­cal­ize hu­man so­ci­ety. Your world of con­fu­sion is no cri­te­rion of the early days of the reign of the Plan­e­tary Princes, for it was near the be­gin­ning of such an ad­min­is­tra­tion on Uran­tia that your Plan­e­tary Prince, Cali­gas­tia, cast his lot with the re­bel­lion of the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign, Lu­cifer. Your planet has pur­sued a stormy course ever since.

49:5.24On a nor­mal evo­lu­tion­ary world, racial prog­ress at­tains its nat­u­ral bi­o­logic peak dur­ing the regime of the Plan­e­tary Prince, and shortly there­after the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign dis­patches a Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter to that planet. These im­ported be­ings are of ser­vice as bi­o­logic up­lifters; their de­fault on Uran­tia fur­ther com­pli­cated your plan­e­tary his­tory.

49:5.25When the in­tel­lec­tual and eth­i­cal prog­ress of a hu­man race has reached the lim­its of evo­lu­tion­ary de­vel­op­ment, there comes an Avo­nal Son of Par­a­dise on a mag­is­te­rial mis­sion; and later on, when the spir­i­tual sta­tus of such a world is near­ing its limit of nat­u­ral at­tain­ment, the planet is vis­ited by a Par­a­dise be­stowal Son. The chief mis­sion of a be­stowal Son is to es­tab­lish the plan­e­tary sta­tus, re­lease the Spirit of Truth for plan­e­tary func­tion, and thus ef­fect the uni­ver­sal com­ing of the Thought Ad­justers.

49:5.26Here, again, Uran­tia de­vi­ates: There has never been a mag­is­te­rial mis­sion on your world, nei­ther was your be­stowal Son of the Avo­nal or­der; your planet en­joyed the sig­nal honor of be­com­ing the mor­tal home planet of the Sov­er­eign Son, Mi­chael of Neb­a­don.

49:5.27As a re­sult of the min­istry of all the suc­ces­sive or­ders of di­vine son­ship, the in­hab­ited worlds and their ad­vanc­ing races be­gin to ap­proach the apex of plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion. Such worlds now be­come ripe for the cul­mi­nat­ing mis­sion, the ar­rival of the Trin­ity Teacher Sons. This epoch of the Teacher Sons is the vestibule to the fi­nal plan­e­tary age—evo­lu­tion­ary utopia—the age of light and life.

49:5.28This clas­si­fi­ca­tion of hu­man be­ings will re­ceive par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion in a suc­ceed­ing pa­per.

49:5.295. Crea­ture-kin­ship se­ri­als. Plan­ets are not only or­ga­nized ver­ti­cally into sys­tems, con­stel­la­tions, and so on, but the uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion also pro­vides for hor­i­zon­tal group­ings ac­cord­ing to type, se­ries, and other re­la­tion­ships. This lat­eral ad­min­is­tra­tion of the uni­verse per­tains more par­tic­u­larly to the co-or­di­na­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties of a kin­dred na­ture which have been in­de­pen­dently fos­tered on dif­fer­ent spheres. These re­lated classes of uni­verse crea­tures are pe­ri­od­i­cally in­spected by cer­tain com­pos­ite corps of high per­son­al­i­ties pre­sided over by long-ex­pe­ri­enced fi­nal­i­ters.

49:5.30These kin­ship fac­tors are man­i­fest on all lev­els, for kin­ship se­ri­als ex­ist among non­hu­man per­son­al­i­ties as well as among mor­tal crea­tures—even be­tween hu­man and super­hu­man or­ders. In­tel­li­gent be­ings are ver­ti­cally re­lated in twelve great groups of seven ma­jor di­vi­sions each. The co-or­di­na­tion of these uniquely re­lated groups of liv­ing be­ings is prob­a­bly ef­fected by some not fully com­pre­hended tech­nique of the Su­preme Be­ing.

49:5.316. Ad­juster-fu­sion se­ries. The spir­i­tual clas­si­fi­ca­tion or group­ing of all mor­tals dur­ing their pre­fu­sion ex­pe­ri­ence is wholly de­ter­mined by the re­la­tion of the per­son­al­ity sta­tus to the in­dwelling Mys­tery Mon­i­tor. Al­most ninety per cent of the in­hab­ited worlds of Neb­a­don are peo­pled with Ad­juster-fu­sion mor­tals in con­trast with a near-by uni­verse where scarcely more than one half of the worlds har­bor be­ings who are Ad­juster-in­dwelt can­di­dates for eter­nal fu­sion.

49:5.327. Tech­niques of ter­res­trial es­cape. There is fun­da­men­tally only one way in which in­di­vid­ual hu­man life can be ini­ti­ated on the in­hab­ited worlds, and that is through crea­ture pro­cre­ation and nat­u­ral birth; but there are nu­mer­ous tech­niques whereby man es­capes his ter­res­trial sta­tus and gains ac­cess to the in­ward mov­ing stream of Par­a­dise as­cend­ers.