Planetary Mortal Epochs

52:4.1On nor­mal and loyal plan­ets this age opens with the mor­tal races blended and bi­o­log­i­cally fit. There are no race or color prob­lems; lit­er­ally all na­tions and races are of one blood. The broth­er­hood of man flour­ishes, and the na­tions are learn­ing to live on earth in peace and tran­quil­lity. Such a world stands on the eve of a great and cul­mi­nat­ing in­tel­lec­tual de­vel­op­ment.

52:4.2When an evo­lu­tion­ary world be­comes thus ripe for the mag­is­te­rial age, one of the high or­der of Avo­nal Sons makes his ap­pear­ance on a mag­is­te­rial mis­sion. The Plan­e­tary Prince and the Ma­te­rial Sons are of lo­cal uni­verse ori­gin; the Mag­is­te­rial Son hails from Par­a­dise.

52:4.3When the Par­a­dise Avo­nals come to the mor­tal spheres on ju­di­cial ac­tions, solely as dis­pen­sa­tion ad­ju­di­ca­tors, they are never in­car­nated. But when they come on mag­is­te­rial mis­sions, at least the ini­tial one, they are al­ways in­car­nated, though they do not ex­pe­ri­ence birth, nei­ther do they die the death of the realm. They may live on for gen­er­a­tions in those cases where they re­main as rulers on cer­tain plan­ets. When their mis­sions are con­cluded, they yield up their plan­e­tary lives and re­turn to their for­mer sta­tus of di­vine son­ship.

52:4.4Each new dis­pen­sa­tion ex­tends the hori­zon of re­vealed re­li­gion, and the Mag­is­te­rial Sons ex­tend the rev­e­la­tion of truth to por­tray the af­fairs of the lo­cal uni­verse and all its trib­u­taries.

52:4.5Af­ter the ini­tial vis­i­ta­tion of a Mag­is­te­rial Son the races soon ef­fect their eco­nomic lib­er­a­tion. The daily work re­quired to sus­tain one’s in­de­pen­dence would be rep­re­sented by two and one-half hours of your time. It is per­fectly safe to lib­er­ate such eth­i­cal and in­tel­li­gent mor­tals. Such re­fined peo­ples well know how to uti­lize leisure for self-im­prove­ment and plan­e­tary ad­vance­ment. This age wit­nesses the fur­ther pu­rifi­ca­tion of the racial stocks by the re­stric­tion of re­pro­duc­tion among the less fit and poorly en­dowed in­di­vid­u­als.

52:4.6The po­lit­i­cal gov­ern­ment and so­cial ad­min­is­tra­tion of the races con­tinue to im­prove, self-gov­ern­ment be­ing fairly well es­tab­lished by the end of this age. By self-gov­ern­ment we re­fer to the high­est type of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment. Such worlds ad­vance and honor only those lead­ers and rulers who are most fit to bear so­cial and po­lit­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

52:4.7Dur­ing this epoch the ma­jor­ity of the world mor­tals are Ad­juster in­dwelt. But even yet the be­stowal of di­vine Mon­i­tors is not al­ways uni­ver­sal. The Ad­justers of fu­sion des­tiny are not yet be­stowed upon all plan­e­tary mor­tals; it is still nec­es­sary for the will crea­tures to choose the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors.

52:4.8Dur­ing the clos­ing ages of this dis­pen­sa­tion, so­ci­ety be­gins to re­turn to more sim­pli­fied forms of liv­ing. The com­plex na­ture of an ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion is run­ning its course, and mor­tals are learn­ing to live more nat­u­rally and ef­fec­tively. And this trend in­creases with each suc­ceed­ing epoch. This is the age of the flow­er­ing of art, mu­sic, and higher learn­ing. The phys­i­cal sci­ences have al­ready reached their height of de­vel­op­ment. The ter­mi­na­tion of this age, on an ideal world, wit­nesses the full­ness of a great re­li­gious awak­en­ing, a world-wide spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment. And this ex­ten­sive arousal of the spir­i­tual na­tures of the races is the sig­nal for the ar­rival of the be­stowal Son and for the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the fifth mor­tal epoch.

52:4.9On many worlds it de­vel­ops that the planet is not made ready for a be­stowal Son by one mag­is­te­rial mis­sion; in that event there will be a sec­ond, even a suc­ces­sion of Mag­is­te­rial Sons, each of whom will ad­vance the races from one dis­pen­sa­tion to an­other un­til the planet is made ready for the gift of the be­stowal Son. On the sec­ond and sub­se­quent mis­sions the Mag­is­te­rial Sons may or may not be in­car­nated. But no mat­ter how many Mag­is­te­rial Sons may ap­pear—and they may also come as such af­ter the be­stowal Son—the ad­vent of each one marks the end of one dis­pen­sa­tion and the be­gin­ning of an­other.

52:4.10These dis­pen­sa­tions of the Mag­is­te­rial Sons cover any­where from twenty-five thou­sand to fifty thou­sand years of Uran­tia time. Some­times such an epoch is much shorter and in rare in­stances even longer. But in the full­ness of time one of these same Mag­is­te­rial Sons will be born as the Par­a­dise be­stowal Son.