angels

26:1.1An­gels are the min­is­ter­ing-spirit as­so­ciates of the evo­lu­tion­ary and as­cend­ing will crea­tures of all space; they are also the col­leagues and work­ing as­so­ciates of the higher hosts of the di­vine per­son­al­i­ties of the spheres. The an­gels of all or­ders are dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties and are highly in­di­vid­u­al­ized. They all have a large ca­pac­ity for ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the min­is­tra­tions of the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors. To­gether with the Mes­sen­ger Hosts of Space, the min­is­ter­ing spir­its en­joy sea­sons of rest and change; they pos­sess very so­cial na­tures and have an as­so­cia­tive ca­pac­ity far tran­scend­ing that of hu­man be­ings.

26:1.2The min­is­ter­ing spir­its of the grand uni­verse are clas­si­fied as fol­lows:

26:1.31. Super­na­phim.

26:1.42. Se­con­a­phim.

26:1.53. Ter­tiaphim.

26:1.64. Om­niaphim.

26:1.75. Ser­a­phim.

26:1.86. Cheru­bim and Sa­no­bim.

26:1.97. Mid­way Crea­tures.

26:1.10The in­di­vid­ual mem­bers of the an­gelic or­ders are not al­to­gether sta­tion­ary as to per­sonal sta­tus in the uni­verse. An­gels of cer­tain or­ders may be­come Par­a­dise Com­pan­ions for a sea­son; some be­come Ce­les­tial Re­cord­ers; oth­ers as­cend to the ranks of the Tech­ni­cal Ad­vis­ers. Cer­tain of the cheru­bim may as­pire to se­raphic sta­tus and des­tiny, while evo­lu­tion­ary ser­a­phim can achieve the spir­i­tual lev­els of the as­cend­ing Sons of God.

26:1.11The seven or­ders of min­is­ter­ing spir­its, as re­vealed, are grouped for pre­sen­ta­tion in ac­cor­dance with their func­tions of great­est im­por­tance to as­cend­ing crea­tures:

26:1.121. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of the Cen­tral Uni­verse. The three or­ders of super­na­phim serve in the Par­a­dise-Ha­vona sys­tem. Pri­mary or Par­a­dise super­na­phim are cre­ated by the In­fi­nite Spirit. The sec­ondary and ter­tiary or­ders, serv­ing in Ha­vona, are re­spec­tively the off­spring of the Mas­ter Spir­its and of the Spir­its of the Cir­cuits.

26:1.132. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of the Super­uni­verses—the se­con­a­phim, the ter­tiaphim, and the om­niaphim. Se­con­a­phim, the chil­dren of the Re­flec­tive Spir­its, var­i­ously serve in the seven super­uni­verses. Ter­tiaphim, of ori­gin in the In­fi­nite Spirit, are even­tu­ally ded­i­cated to the li­ai­son ser­vice of the Cre­ator Sons and the An­cients of Days. Om­niaphim are cre­ated con­cert­edly by the In­fi­nite Spirit and the Seven Su­preme Ex­ec­u­tives, and they are the ex­clu­sive ser­vants of the lat­ter. The dis­cus­sion of these three or­ders forms the sub­ject of a suc­ceed­ing nar­ra­tive in this se­ries.

26:1.143. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of the Lo­cal Uni­verses em­brace the ser­a­phim and their as­sis­tants, the cheru­bim. With these off­spring of a Uni­verse Mother Spirit mor­tal as­cend­ers have ini­tial con­tact. The mid­way crea­tures, of na­tiv­ity on the in­hab­ited worlds, are not re­ally of the an­gelic or­ders proper, though of­ten func­tion­ally grouped with the min­is­ter­ing spir­its. Their story, with an ac­count of the ser­a­phim and cheru­bim, is pre­sented in those pa­pers deal­ing with the af­fairs of your lo­cal uni­verse.

26:1.15All or­ders of the an­gelic hosts are de­voted to the var­i­ous uni­verse ser­vices, and they min­is­ter in one way or an­other to the higher or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings; but it is the super­na­phim, se­con­a­phim, and ser­a­phim who, in large num­bers, are em­ployed in the fur­ther­ance of the as­cend­ing scheme of pro­gres­sive per­fec­tion for the chil­dren of time. Func­tion­ing in the cen­tral, su­per-, and lo­cal uni­verses, they form that un­bro­ken chain of spirit min­is­ters which has been pro­vided by the In­fi­nite Spirit for the help and guid­ance of all who seek to at­tain the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther through the Eter­nal Son.

26:1.16Super­na­phim are lim­ited in “spirit po­lar­ity” re­gard­ing only one phase of ac­tion, that with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. They can work singly ex­cept when di­rectly em­ploy­ing the ex­clu­sive cir­cuits of the Fa­ther. When they are in power re­cep­tion on the Fa­ther’s di­rect min­istry, super­na­phim must vol­un­tar­ily as­so­ciate in pairs to be able to func­tion. Se­con­a­phim are like­wise lim­ited and in ad­di­tion must work in pairs in or­der to syn­chro­nize with the cir­cuits of the Eter­nal Son. Ser­a­phim can work singly as dis­crete and lo­cal­ized per­son­al­i­ties, but they are able to en­cir­cuit only when po­lar­ized as li­ai­son pairs. When such spirit be­ings are as­so­ci­ated as pairs, the one is spo­ken of as com­ple­men­tal to the other. Com­ple­men­tal re­la­tion­ships may be tran­sient; they are not nec­es­sar­ily of a per­ma­nent na­ture.

26:1.17These bril­liant crea­tures of light are sus­tained di­rectly by the in­take of the spir­i­tual en­ergy of the pri­mary cir­cuits of the uni­verse. Uran­tia mor­tals must ob­tain light-en­ergy through the veg­e­ta­tive in­car­na­tion, but the an­gelic hosts are en­cir­cuited; they “have food that you know not.” They also par­take of the cir­cu­lat­ing teach­ings of the mar­velous Trin­ity Teacher Sons; they have a re­cep­tion of knowl­edge and an in­take of wis­dom much re­sem­bling their tech­nique of as­sim­i­lat­ing the life en­er­gies.

39:2.85. The Trans­port­ers. All groups of min­is­ter­ing spir­its have their trans­port corps, an­gelic or­ders ded­i­cated to the min­istry of trans­port­ing those per­son­al­i­ties who are un­able, of them­selves, to jour­ney from one sphere to an­other. The fifth group of the su­pe­rior ser­a­phim are head­quar­tered on Sal­ving­ton and serve as space tra­versers to and from the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verse. Like other sub­di­vi­sions of the su­pe­rior ser­a­phim, some were cre­ated as such while oth­ers have risen from the lower or less en­dowed groups.

27:2.1This is the group des­ig­nated from time to time by the chief super­na­phim, “the orig­i­nal pat­tern an­gel,” to pre­side over the or­ga­ni­za­tion of all three or­ders of these an­gels—pri­mary, sec­ondary, and ter­tiary. The super­na­phim, as a body, are wholly self-gov­ern­ing and self-reg­u­la­tory ex­cept for the func­tions of their mu­tual chief, the first an­gel of Par­a­dise, who ever pre­sides over all these spirit per­son­al­i­ties.

30:2.82C. The Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its.

30:2.831. Super­na­phim.

30:2.842. Se­con­a­phim.

30:2.853. Ter­tiaphim.

30:2.864. Om­niaphim.

30:2.875. Ser­a­phim.

30:2.886. Cheru­bim and Sa­no­bim.

30:2.897. Mid­way­ers.

4:5.2One of the great­est sources of con­fu­sion on Uran­tia con­cern­ing the na­ture of God grows out of the fail­ure of your sa­cred books clearly to dis­tin­guish be­tween the per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and be­tween Par­a­dise De­ity and the lo­cal uni­verse cre­ators and ad­min­is­tra­tors. Dur­ing the past dis­pen­sa­tions of par­tial un­der­stand­ing, your priests and proph­ets failed clearly to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween Plan­e­tary Princes, Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, Cre­ator Sons, Super­uni­verse Rulers, the Su­preme Be­ing, and the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Many of the mes­sages of sub­or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties, such as Life Car­ri­ers and var­i­ous or­ders of an­gels, have been, in your rec­ords, pre­sented as com­ing from God him­self. Uran­tian re­li­gious thought still con­fuses the as­so­ciate per­son­al­i­ties of De­ity with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther him­self, so that all are in­cluded un­der one ap­pel­la­tion.

38:3.1Nu­mer­ous or­ders of spirit be­ings func­tion through­out the do­mains of the lo­cal uni­verse that are un­re­vealed to mor­tals be­cause they are in no man­ner con­nected with the evo­lu­tion­ary plan of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion. In this pa­per the word “an­gel” is pur­posely lim­ited to the des­ig­na­tion of those se­raphic and as­so­ci­ated off­spring of the Uni­verse Mother Spirit who are so largely con­cerned with the op­er­a­tion of the plans of mor­tal sur­vival. There serve in the lo­cal uni­verse six other or­ders of re­lated be­ings, the un­re­vealed an­gels, who are not in any spe­cific man­ner con­nected with those uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties per­tain­ing to the Par­a­dise as­cent of evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tals. These six groups of an­gelic as­so­ciates are never called ser­a­phim, nei­ther are they re­ferred to as min­is­ter­ing spir­its. These per­son­al­i­ties are wholly oc­cu­pied with the ad­min­is­tra­tive and other af­fairs of Neb­a­don, en­gage­ments which are in no way re­lated to man’s pro­gres­sive ca­reer of spir­i­tual as­cent and per­fec­tion at­tain­ment.