cherubim and sanobim

• created by local universe Mother Spirit

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.

• in personality registers

30:1.684. Evo­lu­tion­ary Cheru­bim.

• in personality registers

30:1.8616. Cheru­bim and Sa­no­bim.

• in personality registers

30:2.886. Cheru­bim and Sa­no­bim.

• lowest order of angels; almost human

38:7.1In all es­sen­tial en­dow­ments cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are sim­i­lar to ser­a­phim. They have the same ori­gin but not al­ways the same des­tiny. They are won­der­fully in­tel­li­gent, mar­velously ef­fi­cient, touch­ingly af­fec­tion­ate, and al­most hu­man. They are the low­est or­der of an­gels, hence all the nearer of kin to the more pro­gres­sive types of hu­man be­ings on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

• directed by seraphim
• service › very limited in solitary function
• types › cherubim is right-hand deflector, positively charged angel; controls pair
• types › sanobim is left-hand deflector, negatively charged angel, complement of being

38:7.2Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are in­her­ently as­so­ci­ated, func­tion­ally united. One is an en­ergy pos­i­tive per­son­al­ity; the other, en­ergy neg­a­tive. The right-hand de­flec­tor, or pos­i­tively charged an­gel, is the cheru­bim—the se­nior or con­trol­ling per­son­al­ity. The left-hand de­flec­tor, or neg­a­tively charged an­gel, is the sa­no­bim—the com­ple­ment of be­ing. Each type of an­gel is very lim­ited in soli­tary func­tion; hence they usu­ally serve in pairs. When serv­ing in­de­pen­dently of their se­raphic di­rec­tors, they are more than ever de­pen­dent on mu­tual con­tact and al­ways func­tion to­gether.

• remain in local universe
• service › associated with seraphim; keep records

38:7.3Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are the faith­ful and ef­fi­cient aids of the se­raphic min­is­ters, and all seven or­ders of ser­a­phim are pro­vided with these sub­or­di­nate as­sis­tants. Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim serve for ages in these ca­pac­i­ties, but they do not ac­com­pany ser­a­phim on as­sign­ments be­yond the con­fines of the lo­cal uni­verse.

• service › routine spirit workers

38:7.4The cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are the rou­tine spirit work­ers on the in­di­vid­ual worlds of the sys­tems. On a non­per­sonal as­sign­ment and in an emer­gency, they may serve in the place of a se­raphic pair, but they never func­tion, even tem­porar­ily, as at­tend­ing an­gels to hu­man be­ings; that is an ex­clu­sive se­raphic priv­i­lege.

• engage in self-improvement; learn languages

38:7.5When as­signed to a planet, cheru­bim en­ter the lo­cal courses of train­ing, in­clud­ing a study of plan­e­tary us­ages and lan­guages. The min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time are all bilin­gual, speak­ing the lan­guage of the lo­cal uni­verse of their ori­gin and that of their na­tive super­uni­verse. By study in the schools of the realms they ac­quire ad­di­tional tongues. Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim, like ser­a­phim and all other or­ders of spirit be­ings, are con­tin­u­ously en­gaged in ef­forts at self-im­prove­ment. Only such as the sub­or­di­nate be­ings of power con­trol and en­ergy di­rec­tion are in­ca­pable of pro­gres­sion; all crea­tures hav­ing ac­tual or po­ten­tial per­son­al­ity vo­li­tion seek new achieve­ments.

• created by local universe Mother Spirit
• like midwayers; near morontia level of existence
• types › fourth creatures

38:7.6Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are by na­ture very near the mor­ontia level of ex­is­tence, and they prove to be most ef­fi­cient in the bor­der­land work of the phys­i­cal, mor­ontial, and spir­i­tual do­mains. These chil­dren of the lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit are char­ac­ter­ized by “fourth crea­tures” much as are the Ha­vona Servi­tals and the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions. Ev­ery fourth cheru­bim and ev­ery fourth sa­no­bim are quasi-ma­te­rial, very def­i­nitely re­sem­bling the mor­ontia level of ex­is­tence.

• service › perform indispensable borderline tasks

38:7.7These an­gelic fourth crea­tures are of great as­sis­tance to the ser­a­phim in the more lit­eral phases of their uni­verse and plan­e­tary ac­tiv­i­ties. Such mor­ontia cheru­bim also per­form many in­dis­pens­able bor­der­line tasks on the mor­ontia train­ing worlds and are as­signed to the ser­vice of the Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions in large num­bers. They are to the mor­ontia spheres about what the mid­way crea­tures are to the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets. On the in­hab­ited worlds these mor­ontia cheru­bim fre­quently work in li­ai­son with the mid­way crea­tures. Cheru­bim and mid­way crea­tures are dis­tinctly sep­a­rate or­ders of be­ings; they have dis­sim­i­lar ori­gins, but they dis­close great sim­i­lar­ity in na­ture and func­tion.

38:8.1Nu­mer­ous av­enues of ad­vanc­ing ser­vice are open to cheru­bim and sa­no­bim lead­ing to an en­hance­ment of sta­tus, which may be still fur­ther aug­mented by the em­brace of the Di­vine Min­is­ter. There are three great classes of cheru­bim and sa­no­bim with re­gard to evo­lu­tion­ary po­ten­tial:

• may attain full seraphic standing

38:8.21. As­cen­sion Can­di­dates. These be­ings are by na­ture can­di­dates for se­raphic sta­tus. Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim of this or­der are bril­liant, though not by in­her­ent en­dow­ment equal to the ser­a­phim; but by ap­pli­ca­tion and ex­pe­ri­ence it is pos­si­ble for them to at­tain full se­raphic stand­ing.

38:8.32. Mid-phase Cheru­bim. All cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are not equal in as­cen­sion po­ten­tial, and these are the in­her­ently lim­ited be­ings of the an­gelic cre­ations. Most of them will re­main cheru­bim and sa­no­bim, al­though the more gifted in­di­vid­u­als may achieve lim­ited se­raphic ser­vice.

• types › fourth creatures

38:8.43. Mor­ontia Cheru­bim. These “fourth crea­tures” of the an­gelic or­ders al­ways re­tain their quasi-ma­te­rial char­ac­ter­is­tics. They will con­tinue on as cheru­bim and sa­no­bim, to­gether with a ma­jor­ity of their mid-phase breth­ren, pend­ing the com­pleted fac­tu­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing.

• Mother Spirit transforms deserted c. and s. into Mansion World Teachers
• service › not with guardian angels on mansion worlds

38:8.5While the sec­ond and third groups are some­what lim­ited in growth po­ten­tial, the as­cen­sion can­di­dates may at­tain the heights of uni­ver­sal se­raphic ser­vice. Many of the more ex­pe­ri­enced of these cheru­bim are at­tached to the se­raphic guard­i­ans of des­tiny and are thus placed in di­rect line for ad­vance­ment to the sta­tus of Man­sion World Teach­ers when de­serted by their se­raphic se­niors. Guard­i­ans of des­tiny do not have cheru­bim and sa­no­bim as helpers when their mor­tal wards at­tain the mor­ontia life. And when other types of evo­lu­tion­ary ser­a­phim are granted clear­ance for Seraph­ing­ton and Par­a­dise, they must for­sake their for­mer sub­or­di­nates when they pass out of the con­fines of Neb­a­don. Such de­serted cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are usu­ally em­braced by the Uni­verse Mother Spirit, thus achiev­ing a level equiv­a­lent to that of a Man­sion World Teacher in the at­tain­ment of se­raphic sta­tus.

• may attain full seraphic standing

38:8.6When, as Man­sion World Teach­ers, the once-em­braced cheru­bim and sa­no­bim have long served on the mor­ontia spheres, from the low­est to the high­est, and when their corps on Sal­ving­ton is over­recruited, the Bright and Morn­ing Star sum­mons these faith­ful ser­vants of the crea­tures of time to ap­pear in his pres­ence. The oath of per­son­al­ity trans­for­ma­tion is ad­min­is­tered; and there­upon, in groups of seven thou­sand, these ad­vanced and se­nior cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are re-em­braced by the Uni­verse Mother Spirit. From this sec­ond em­brace they emerge as full-fledged ser­a­phim. Hence­forth, the full and com­plete ca­reer of a ser­a­phim, with all of its Par­a­dise pos­si­bil­i­ties, is open to such re­born cheru­bim and sa­no­bim. Such an­gels may be as­signed as guard­i­ans of des­tiny to some mor­tal be­ing, and if the mor­tal ward at­tains sur­vival, then do they be­come el­i­gi­ble for ad­vance­ment to Seraph­ing­ton and the seven cir­cles of se­raphic at­tain­ment, even to Par­a­dise and the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity.

• service › help Spirit-fused survivors repossess mortal memory

40:9.5Such chil­dren of the lo­cal uni­verse are en­abled to re­pos­sess them­selves of much of their for­mer hu­man mem­ory ex­pe­ri­ence through hav­ing it re­told by the as­so­ci­ated ser­a­phim and cheru­bim and by con­sult­ing the rec­ords of the mor­tal ca­reer filed by the record­ing an­gels. This they can do with un­doubted as­sur­ance be­cause the sur­viv­ing soul, of ex­pe­ri­en­tial ori­gin in the ma­te­rial and mor­tal life, while hav­ing no mem­ory of mor­tal events, does have a resid­ual ex­pe­ri­en­tial-rec­og­ni­tion-re­sponse to these un­re­mem­bered events of past ex­pe­ri­ence.

• celestial artisans teach efficient energy intake to
• types › cherubim is right-hand deflector, positively charged angel; controls pair
• types › sanobim is left-hand deflector, negatively charged angel, complement of being

44:5.10These en­ergy ma­nip­u­la­tors also func­tion in hun­dreds of other ways too nu­mer­ous to cat­a­logue, such as coun­sel­ing with the ser­a­phim, cheru­bim, and sa­no­bim re­gard­ing the most ef­fi­cient modes of en­ergy in­take and as to the main­te­nance of the most help­ful bal­ances of di­ver­gent forces be­tween ac­tive cheru­bim and pas­sive sa­no­bim. In many other ways do these ex­perts lend as­sis­tance to mor­ontia and spirit crea­tures in their ef­forts to un­der­stand the di­vine rest, which is so es­sen­tial to the ef­fec­tive uti­liza­tion of the ba­sic en­er­gies of space.

• service › deliver undeveloped souls to probationary nurseries, where they have educational facilities

47:2.1The in­fant-re­ceiv­ing schools of Sa­ta­nia are sit­u­ated on the fi­nal­i­ter world, the first of the Je­ru­sem tran­si­tion-cul­ture spheres. These in­fant-re­ceiv­ing schools are en­ter­prises de­voted to the nur­ture and train­ing of the chil­dren of time, in­clud­ing those who have died on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of space be­fore the ac­quire­ment of in­di­vid­ual sta­tus on the uni­verse rec­ords. In the event of the sur­vival of ei­ther or both of such a child’s par­ents, the guard­ian of des­tiny dep­u­tizes her as­so­ci­ated cheru­bim as the cus­to­dian of the child’s po­ten­tial iden­tity, charg­ing the cheru­bim with the re­spon­si­bil­ity of de­liv­er­ing this un­de­vel­oped soul into the hands of the Man­sion World Teach­ers in the pro­ba­tion­ary nurs­eries of the mor­ontia worlds.

47:2.2It is these same de­serted cheru­bim who, as Man­sion World Teach­ers, un­der the super­vi­sion of the Mel­chiz­e­deks, main­tain such ex­ten­sive ed­u­ca­tional fa­cil­i­ties for the train­ing of the pro­ba­tion­ary wards of the fi­nal­i­ters. These wards of the fi­nal­i­ters, these in­fants of as­cend­ing mor­tals, are al­ways per­son­al­ized as of their ex­act phys­i­cal sta­tus at the time of death ex­cept for re­pro­duc­tive po­ten­tial. This awak­en­ing oc­curs at the ex­act time of the pa­ren­tal ar­rival on the first man­sion world. And then are these chil­dren given ev­ery op­por­tu­nity, as they are, to choose the heav­enly way just as they would have made such a choice on the worlds where death so un­timely ter­mi­nated their ca­reers.

• lowest order of angels; almost human

48:3.4There are two dis­tinct types of Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions; one type is ag­gres­sive, the other re­tir­ing, but oth­er­wise they are equal in sta­tus. They are not sex crea­tures, but they man­i­fest a touch­ingly beau­ti­ful af­fec­tion for one an­other. And while they are hardly com­pan­ion­ate in the ma­te­rial (hu­man) sense, they are very close of kin to the hu­man races in the or­der of crea­ture ex­is­tence. The mid­way crea­tures of the worlds are your near­est of kin; then come the mor­ontia cheru­bim, and af­ter them the Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions.

• directed by seraphim
• Mother Spirit transforms deserted c. and s. into Mansion World Teachers

48:5.1The Man­sion World Teach­ers are a corps of de­serted but glo­ri­fied cheru­bim and sa­no­bim. When a pil­grim of time ad­vances from a trial world of space to the man­sion and as­so­ci­ated worlds of mor­ontia train­ing, he is ac­com­pa­nied by his per­sonal or group ser­a­phim, the guard­ian of des­tiny. In the worlds of mor­tal ex­is­tence the ser­a­phim is ably as­sisted by cheru­bim and sa­no­bim; but when her mor­tal ward is de­liv­ered from the bonds of the flesh and starts out on the as­cen­dant ca­reer, when the post­ma­te­rial or mor­ontia life be­gins, the at­tend­ing ser­a­phim has no fur­ther need of the min­is­tra­tions of her for­mer lieu­tenants, the cheru­bim and sa­no­bim.

48:5.2These de­serted as­sis­tants of the min­is­ter­ing ser­a­phim are of­ten sum­moned to uni­verse head­quar­ters, where they pass into the in­ti­mate em­brace of the Uni­verse Mother Spirit and then go forth to the sys­tem train­ing spheres as Man­sion World Teach­ers. These teach­ers of­ten visit the ma­te­rial worlds and func­tion from the low­est man­sion worlds on up to the high­est of the ed­u­ca­tional spheres con­nected with the uni­verse head­quar­ters. Upon their own mo­tion they may re­turn to their for­mer as­so­cia­tive work with the min­is­ter­ing ser­a­phim.

• may attain full seraphic standing

48:5.10Many of the older of these teach­ers, those who have long served on the worlds of the Sal­ving­ton cir­cuit, are re-em­braced by the Uni­verse Mother Spirit, and from this sec­ond em­brace these cheru­bim and sa­no­bim emerge with the sta­tus of ser­a­phim.

• many lost in Lucifer rebellion

53:7.6Of the su­preme or­der of ser­a­phim, not an an­gel was lost, but a con­sid­er­able group of the next or­der, the su­pe­rior, were de­ceived and en­snared. Like­wise a few of the third or super­vi­sor or­der of an­gels were mis­led. But the ter­ri­ble break­down came in the fourth group, the ad­min­is­tra­tor an­gels, those ser­a­phim who are nor­mally as­signed to the du­ties of the sys­tem cap­i­tals. Man­otia saved al­most two thirds of them, but slightly over one third fol­lowed their chief into the rebel ranks. One third of all the Je­ru­sem cheru­bim at­tached to the ad­min­is­tra­tor an­gels were lost with their dis­loyal ser­a­phim.

53:7.7Of the plan­e­tary an­gelic helpers, those as­signed to the Ma­te­rial Sons, about one third were de­ceived, and al­most ten per cent of the tran­si­tion min­is­ters were en­snared. In sym­bol John saw this when he wrote of the great red dragon, say­ing: “And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them down in dark­ness.”

• many lost in Lucifer rebellion

67:3.2On Uran­tia forty mem­bers of the cor­po­real staff of one hun­dred (in­clud­ing Van) re­fused to join the in­sur­rec­tion. Many of the staff’s hu­man as­sis­tants (mod­i­fied and oth­er­wise) were also brave and no­ble de­fend­ers of Mi­chael and his uni­verse gov­ern­ment. There was a ter­ri­ble loss of per­son­al­i­ties among ser­a­phim and cheru­bim. Al­most one half of the ad­min­is­tra­tor and tran­si­tion ser­a­phim as­signed to the planet joined their leader and Dali­gas­tia in sup­port of the cause of Lu­cifer. Forty thou­sand one hun­dred and nine­teen of the pri­mary mid­way crea­tures joined hands with Cali­gas­tia, but the re­main­der of these be­ings re­mained true to their trust.

• chief advised Melchizedek receivers after rebellion

67:6.5The af­fairs of Uran­tia were for a long time ad­min­is­tered by a coun­cil of plan­e­tary re­ceivers, twelve Mel­chiz­e­deks, con­firmed by the man­date of the se­nior con­stel­la­tion ruler, the Most High Fa­ther of Nor­la­ti­adek. As­so­ci­ated with the Mel­chiz­e­dek re­ceivers was an ad­vi­sory coun­cil con­sist­ing of: one of the loyal aids of the fallen Prince, the two res­i­dent Life Car­ri­ers, a Trin­i­tized Son in ap­pren­tice­ship train­ing, a vol­un­teer Teacher Son, a Bril­liant Evening Star of Avalon (pe­ri­od­i­cally), the chiefs of ser­a­phim and cheru­bim, ad­vis­ers from two neigh­bor­ing plan­ets, the di­rec­tor gen­eral of sub­or­di­nate an­gelic life, and Van, the com­man­der in chief of the mid­way crea­tures. And thus was Uran­tia gov­erned and ad­min­is­tered un­til the ar­rival of Adam. It is not strange that the coura­geous and loyal Van was as­signed a place on the coun­cil of plan­e­tary re­ceivers which for so long ad­min­is­tered the af­fairs of Uran­tia.

• some rebel c. and s. on earth up to Christ’s death

77:7.4These dis­loyal mid­way­ers were able to re­veal them­selves to mor­tal eyes un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances, and es­pe­cially was this true of the as­so­ciates of Beelze­bub, the leader of the apos­tate sec­ondary mid­way­ers. But these unique crea­tures must not be con­fused with cer­tain of the rebel cheru­bim and ser­a­phim who also were on earth up to the time of Christ’s death and res­ur­rec­tion. Some of the older writ­ers des­ig­nated these re­bel­lious mid­way crea­tures as evil spir­its and demons, and the apos­tate ser­a­phim as evil an­gels.

• types › positive or aggressive and negative or retiring

84:6.5The dif­fer­ences of na­ture, re­ac­tion, view­point, and think­ing be­tween men and women, far from oc­ca­sion­ing con­cern, should be re­garded as highly ben­e­fi­cial to man­kind, both in­di­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively. Many or­ders of uni­verse crea­tures are cre­ated in dual phases of per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion. Among mor­tals, Ma­te­rial Sons, and mid­soniters, this dif­fer­ence is de­scribed as male and fe­male; among ser­a­phim, cheru­bim, and Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions, it has been de­nom­i­nated pos­i­tive or ag­gres­sive and neg­a­tive or re­tir­ing. Such dual as­so­ci­a­tions greatly mul­ti­ply ver­sa­til­ity and over­come in­her­ent lim­i­ta­tions, even as do cer­tain tri­une as­so­ci­a­tions in the Par­a­dise-Ha­vona sys­tem.

• service › associated with seraphim; keep records

113:2.9When a se­raphic pair ac­cept guard­ian as­sign­ment, they serve for the re­main­der of the life of that hu­man be­ing. The com­ple­ment of be­ing (one of the two an­gels) be­comes the re­corder of the un­der­tak­ing. These com­ple­men­tal ser­a­phim are the record­ing an­gels of the mor­tals of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. The rec­ords are kept by the pair of cheru­bim (a cheru­bim and a sa­no­bim) who are al­ways as­so­ci­ated with the se­raphic guard­i­ans, but these rec­ords are al­ways spon­sored by one of the ser­a­phim.

• 500 million pairs on Urantia in 1934

114:0.1The Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men through many ce­les­tial forces and agen­cies but chiefly through the min­istry of ser­a­phim.