The Planetary Princes

50:6.1The iso­la­tion of Uran­tia ren­ders it im­pos­si­ble to un­der­take the pre­sen­ta­tion of many de­tails of the life and en­vi­ron­ment of your Sa­ta­nia neigh­bors. In these pre­sen­ta­tions we are lim­ited by the plan­e­tary quar­an­tine and by the sys­tem iso­la­tion. We must be guided by these re­stric­tions in all our ef­forts to en­lighten Uran­tia mor­tals, but in so far as is per­mis­si­ble, you have been in­structed in the prog­ress of an av­er­age evo­lu­tion­ary world, and you are able to com­pare such a world’s ca­reer with the pres­ent state of Uran­tia.

50:6.2The de­vel­op­ment of civ­i­liza­tion on Uran­tia has not dif­fered so greatly from that of other worlds which have sus­tained the mis­for­tune of spir­i­tual iso­la­tion. But when com­pared with the loyal worlds of the uni­verse, your planet seems most con­fused and greatly re­tarded in all phases of in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress and spir­i­tual at­tain­ment.

50:6.3Be­cause of your plan­e­tary mis­for­tunes, Uran­tians are pre­vented from un­der­stand­ing very much about the cul­ture of nor­mal worlds. But you should not en­vis­age the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds, even the most ideal, as spheres whereon life is a flow­ery bed of ease. The ini­tial life of the mor­tal races is al­ways at­tended by strug­gle. Ef­fort and de­ci­sion are an es­sen­tial part of the ac­quire­ment of sur­vival val­ues.

50:6.4Cul­ture pre­sup­poses qual­ity of mind; cul­ture can­not be en­hanced un­less mind is el­e­vated. Su­pe­rior in­tel­lect will seek a no­ble cul­ture and find some way to at­tain such a goal. In­fe­rior minds will spurn the high­est cul­ture even when pre­sented to them ready-made. Much de­pends, also, upon the suc­ces­sive mis­sions of the di­vine Sons and upon the ex­tent to which en­light­en­ment is re­ceived by the ages of their re­spec­tive dis­pen­sa­tions.

50:6.5You should not for­get that for two hun­dred thou­sand years all the worlds of Sa­ta­nia have rested un­der the spir­i­tual ban of Nor­la­ti­adek in con­se­quence of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. And it will re­quire age upon age to re­trieve the re­sul­tant hand­i­caps of sin and se­ces­sion. Your world still con­tin­ues to pur­sue an ir­reg­u­lar and check­ered ca­reer as a re­sult of the dou­ble tragedy of a re­bel­lious Plan­e­tary Prince and a de­fault­ing Ma­te­rial Son. Even the be­stowal of Christ Mi­chael on Uran­tia did not im­me­di­ately set aside the tem­po­ral con­se­quences of these se­ri­ous blun­ders in the ear­lier ad­min­is­tra­tion of the world.