conciliating commissions

25:2.1For ev­ery Ha­vona Servi­tal cre­ated, seven Uni­ver­sal Con­cil­ia­tors are brought into be­ing, one in each super­uni­verse. This cre­ative en­act­ment in­volves a def­i­nite super­uni­verse tech­nique of re­flec­tive re­sponse to trans­ac­tions tak­ing place on Par­a­dise.

25:2.2On the head­quar­ters worlds of the seven super­uni­verses there func­tion the seven re­flec­tions of the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its. It is dif­fi­cult to un­der­take to por­tray the na­tures of these Re­flec­tive Spir­its to ma­te­rial minds. They are true per­son­al­i­ties; still each mem­ber of a super­uni­verse group is per­fectly re­flec­tive of just one of the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its. And ev­ery time the Mas­ter Spir­its as­so­ciate them­selves with the power di­rec­tors for the pur­pose of cre­at­ing a group of Ha­vona Servi­tals, there is a si­mul­ta­ne­ous fo­cal­iza­tion upon one of the Re­flec­tive Spir­its in each of the super­uni­verse groups, and forth­with and full-fledgedly an equal num­ber of Uni­ver­sal Con­cil­ia­tors ap­pear on the head­quar­ters worlds of the super­cre­ations. If, in the cre­ation of servi­tals, Mas­ter Spirit Num­ber Seven should take the ini­tia­tive, none but the Re­flec­tive Spir­its of the sev­enth or­der would be­come preg­nant with con­cil­ia­tors; and con­cur­rently with the cre­ation of one thou­sand Or­von­ton­like servi­tals, one thou­sand of the sev­enth-or­der con­cil­ia­tors would ap­pear on each super­uni­verse cap­i­tal. Out of these episodes, re­flect­ing the sev­en­fold na­ture of the Mas­ter Spir­its, arise the seven cre­ated or­ders of con­cil­ia­tors serv­ing in each super­uni­verse.

25:2.3Con­cil­ia­tors of pre-Par­a­dise sta­tus do not serve in­ter­change­ably be­tween super­uni­verses, be­ing re­stricted to their na­tive seg­ments of cre­ation. Ev­ery super­uni­verse corps, em­brac­ing one sev­enth of each cre­ated or­der, there­fore spends a very long time un­der the in­flu­ence of one of the Mas­ter Spir­its to the ex­clu­sion of the oth­ers, for, while all seven are re­flected on the super­uni­verse cap­i­tals, only one is dom­i­nant in each super­cre­ation.

25:2.4Each of the seven super­cre­ations is ac­tu­ally per­vaded by that one of the Mas­ter Spir­its who pre­sides over its des­tinies. Each super­uni­verse thus be­comes like a gi­gan­tic mir­ror re­flect­ing the na­ture and char­ac­ter of the super­vis­ing Mas­ter Spirit, and all of this is fur­ther con­tin­ued in ev­ery sub­sidiary lo­cal uni­verse by the pres­ence and func­tion of the Cre­ative Mother Spir­its. The ef­fect of such an en­vi­ron­ment upon evo­lu­tion­ary growth is so pro­found that in their post­super­uni­verse ca­reers the con­cil­ia­tors col­lec­tively man­i­fest forty-nine ex­pe­ri­en­tial view­points, or in­sights, each an­gu­lar—hence in­com­plete—but all mu­tu­ally com­pen­satory and to­gether tend­ing to en­com­pass the cir­cle of Su­prem­acy.

25:2.5In each super­uni­verse the Uni­ver­sal Con­cil­ia­tors find them­selves strangely and in­nately seg­re­gated into groups of four, as­so­ci­a­tions in which they con­tinue to serve. In each group, three are spirit per­son­al­i­ties, and one, like the fourth crea­tures of the servi­tals, is a semi­ma­te­rial be­ing. This quar­tet con­sti­tutes a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion and is made up as fol­lows:

25:2.61. The Judge-Ar­biter. The one unan­i­mously des­ig­nated by the other three as the most com­pe­tent and best qual­i­fied to act as ju­di­cial head of the group.

25:2.72. The Spirit-Ad­vo­cate. The one ap­pointed by the judge-ar­biter to pre­sent ev­i­dence and to safe­guard the rights of all per­son­al­i­ties in­volved in any mat­ter as­signed to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion.

25:2.83. The Di­vine Ex­e­cu­tioner. The con­cil­ia­tor qual­i­fied by in­her­ent na­ture to make con­tact with the ma­te­rial be­ings of the realms and to ex­e­cute the de­ci­sions of the com­mis­sion. Di­vine ex­e­cu­tion­ers, be­ing fourth crea­tures—quasi-ma­te­rial be­ings—are al­most, but not quite, vis­i­ble to the short-range vi­sion of the mor­tal races.

25:2.94. The Re­corder. The re­main­ing mem­ber of the com­mis­sion au­to­mat­i­cally be­comes the re­corder, the clerk of the tri­bu­nal. He makes cer­tain that all rec­ords are prop­erly pre­pared for the ar­chives of the super­uni­verse and for the rec­ords of the lo­cal uni­verse. If the com­mis­sion is serv­ing on an evo­lu­tion­ary world, a third re­port, with the as­sis­tance of the ex­e­cu­tioner, is pre­pared for the phys­i­cal rec­ords of the sys­tem gov­ern­ment of ju­ris­dic­tion.

25:2.10When in ses­sion a com­mis­sion func­tions as a group of three since the ad­vo­cate is de­tached dur­ing ad­ju­di­ca­tion and par­tic­i­pates in the for­mu­la­tion of the ver­dict only at the con­clu­sion of the hear­ing. Hence these com­mis­sions are some­times called ref­eree trios.

25:2.11The con­cil­ia­tors are of great value in keep­ing the uni­verse of uni­verses run­ning smoothly. Travers­ing space at the se­raphic rate of triple ve­loc­ity, they serve as the trav­el­ing courts of the worlds, com­mis­sions de­voted to the quick ad­ju­di­ca­tion of mi­nor dif­fi­cul­ties. Were it not for these mo­bile and em­i­nently fair com­mis­sions, the tri­bu­nals of the spheres would be hope­lessly over­spread with the mi­nor mis­un­der­stand­ings of the realms.

25:2.12These ref­eree trios do not pass upon mat­ters of eter­nal im­port; the soul, the eter­nal prospects of a crea­ture of time, is never placed in jeop­ardy by their acts. Con­cil­ia­tors do not deal with ques­tions ex­tend­ing be­yond the tem­po­ral ex­is­tence and the cos­mic wel­fare of the crea­tures of time. But when a com­mis­sion has once ac­cepted ju­ris­dic­tion of a prob­lem, its rul­ings are fi­nal and al­ways unan­i­mous; there is no ap­peal from the de­ci­sion of the judge-ar­biter.

25:3.1Con­cil­ia­tors main­tain group head­quar­ters on the cap­i­tal of their super­uni­verse, where their pri­mary re­serve corps is held. Their sec­ondary re­serves are sta­tioned on the cap­i­tals of the lo­cal uni­verses. The younger and less ex­pe­ri­enced com­mis­sion­ers be­gin their ser­vice on the lower worlds, worlds like Uran­tia, and are ad­vanced to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of greater prob­lems af­ter they have ac­quired riper ex­pe­ri­ence.

25:3.2The or­der of con­cil­ia­tors is wholly de­pend­able; not one has ever gone astray. Though not in­fal­li­ble in wis­dom and judg­ment, they are of un­ques­tioned re­li­a­bil­ity and unerring in faith­ful­ness. They take ori­gin on the head­quar­ters of a super­uni­verse and even­tu­ally re­turn thereto, ad­vanc­ing through the fol­low­ing lev­els of uni­verse ser­vice:

25:3.31. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Worlds. When­ever the super­vis­ing per­son­al­i­ties of the in­di­vid­ual worlds be­come greatly per­plexed or ac­tu­ally dead­locked con­cern­ing the proper pro­ce­dure un­der ex­ist­ing cir­cum­stances, and if the mat­ter is not of suf­fi­cient im­por­tance to be brought be­fore the reg­u­larly con­sti­tuted tri­bu­nals of the realm, then, upon the re­ceipt of a pe­ti­tion of two per­son­al­i­ties, one from each con­tention, a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion will be­gin to func­tion forth­with.

25:3.4When these ad­min­is­tra­tive and ju­ris­dic­tional dif­fi­cul­ties have been placed in the hands of the con­cil­ia­tors for study and ad­ju­di­ca­tion, they are su­preme in au­thor­ity. But they will not for­mu­late a de­ci­sion un­til all the ev­i­dence has been heard, and there is ab­so­lutely no limit to their au­thor­ity to call wit­nesses from any­where and ev­ery­where. And while their de­ci­sions may not be ap­pealed, some­times mat­ters so de­velop that the com­mis­sion closes its rec­ords at a given point, con­cludes its opin­ions, and trans­fers the whole ques­tion to the higher tri­bu­nals of the realm.

25:3.5The com­mis­sion­ers’ de­ci­sions are placed on the plan­e­tary rec­ords and, if nec­es­sary, are put into ef­fect by the di­vine ex­e­cu­tioner. His power is very great, and the range of his ac­tiv­i­ties on an in­hab­ited world is very wide. Di­vine ex­e­cu­tion­ers are mas­ter­ful ma­nip­u­la­tors of that which is in the in­ter­ests of that which ought to be. Their work is some­times car­ried out for the ap­par­ent wel­fare of the realm, and some­times their acts on the worlds of time and space are dif­fi­cult of ex­pla­na­tion. Though ex­e­cut­ing de­crees in de­fi­ance of nei­ther nat­u­ral law nor the or­dained us­ages of the realm, they do oft­times ef­fect their strange do­ings and en­force the man­dates of the con­cil­ia­tors in ac­cor­dance with the higher laws of the sys­tem ad­min­is­tra­tion.

25:3.62. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Sys­tem Head­quar­ters. From ser­vice on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds these com­mis­sions of four are ad­vanced to duty on a sys­tem head­quar­ters. Here they have much work to do, and they prove to be the un­der­stand­ing friends of men, an­gels, and other spirit be­ings. The ref­eree trios are not so much con­cerned with per­sonal dif­fer­ences as with group con­tentions and with mis­un­der­stand­ings aris­ing be­tween dif­fer­ent or­ders of crea­tures; and on a sys­tem head­quar­ters there live both spir­i­tual and ma­te­rial be­ings, as well as the com­bined types, such as the Ma­te­rial Sons.

25:3.7The mo­ment the Cre­ators bring into ex­is­tence evolv­ing in­di­vid­u­als with the power of choice, that mo­ment a de­par­ture is made from the smooth work­ing of di­vine per­fec­tion; mis­un­der­stand­ings are cer­tain to arise, and pro­vi­sion for the fair ad­just­ment of these hon­est dif­fer­ences of view­point must be made. We should all re­mem­ber that the all-wise and all-pow­er­ful Cre­ators could have made the lo­cal uni­verses just as per­fect as Ha­vona. No con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions need func­tion in the cen­tral uni­verse. But the Cre­ators did not choose in their all-wis­dom to do this. And while they have pro­duced uni­verses which abound in dif­fer­ences and teem with dif­fi­cul­ties, they have like­wise pro­vided the mech­a­nisms and the means for com­pos­ing all these dif­fer­ences and for har­mo­niz­ing all this seem­ing con­fu­sion.

25:3.83. The Con­stel­la­tion Con­cil­ia­tors. From ser­vice in the sys­tems the con­cil­ia­tors are pro­moted to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the prob­lems of a con­stel­la­tion, tak­ing up the mi­nor dif­fi­cul­ties aris­ing be­tween its one hun­dred sys­tems of in­hab­ited worlds. Not many prob­lems de­vel­op­ing on the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters fall un­der their ju­ris­dic­tion, but they are kept busy go­ing from sys­tem to sys­tem gath­er­ing ev­i­dence and prepar­ing pre­lim­i­nary state­ments. If the con­tention is hon­est, if the dif­fi­cul­ties arise out of sin­cere dif­fer­ences of opin­ion and hon­est di­ver­sity of view­points, no mat­ter how few per­sons may be in­volved, no mat­ter how ap­par­ently triv­ial the mis­un­der­stand­ing, a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion can al­ways be had to pass upon the mer­its of the con­tro­versy.

25:3.94. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Lo­cal Uni­verses. In this larger work of a uni­verse the com­mis­sion­ers are of great as­sis­tance to both the Mel­chiz­e­deks and the Mag­is­te­rial Sons and to the con­stel­la­tion rulers and the hosts of per­son­al­i­ties con­cerned with the co-or­di­na­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions. The dif­fer­ent or­ders of ser­a­phim and other res­i­dents of the head­quar­ters spheres of a lo­cal uni­verse also avail them­selves of the help and de­ci­sions of the ref­eree trios.

25:3.10It is al­most im­pos­si­ble to ex­plain the na­ture of those dif­fer­ences which may arise in the de­tailed af­fairs of a sys­tem, a con­stel­la­tion, or a uni­verse. Dif­fi­cul­ties do de­velop, but they are very un­like the petty tri­als and tra­vails of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence as it is lived on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

25:3.115. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse Mi­nor Sec­tors. From the prob­lems of lo­cal uni­verses the com­mis­sion­ers are ad­vanced to the study of ques­tions aris­ing in the mi­nor sec­tors of their super­uni­verse. The far­ther they as­cend in­ward from the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets, the fewer are the ma­te­rial du­ties of the di­vine ex­e­cu­tioner; grad­u­ally he as­sumes a new role of mercy-jus­tice in­ter­preter, at the same time—be­ing quasi-ma­te­rial—keep­ing the com­mis­sion as a whole in sym­pa­thetic touch with the ma­te­rial as­pects of its in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

25:3.126. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse Ma­jor Sec­tors. The char­ac­ter of the work of the com­mis­sion­ers con­tin­ues to change as they ad­vance. There is less and less of mis­un­der­stand­ing to ad­ju­di­cate and more and more of mys­te­ri­ous phe­nom­ena to ex­plain and in­ter­pret. From stage to stage they are evolv­ing from ar­biters of dif­fer­ences to ex­plain­ers of mys­ter­ies—judges evolv­ing into in­ter­pre­ta­tive teach­ers. Ar­biters of those who through ig­no­rance per­mit dif­fi­cul­ties and mis­un­der­stand­ings to arise, they once were; but they are now be­com­ing in­struc­tors of those who are suf­fi­ciently in­tel­li­gent and tol­er­ant to avoid clashes of mind and wars of opin­ions. The higher a crea­ture’s ed­u­ca­tion, the more re­spect he has for the knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence, and opin­ions of oth­ers.

25:3.137. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse. Here the con­cil­ia­tors be­come co-or­di­nate—four mu­tu­ally un­der­stood and per­fectly func­tion­ing ar­biter-teach­ers. The di­vine ex­e­cu­tioner is di­vested of re­tribu­tive power and be­comes the phys­i­cal voice of the spirit trio. By this time these coun­selors and teach­ers have be­come ex­pertly fa­mil­iar with most of the ac­tual prob­lems and dif­fi­cul­ties en­coun­tered in the con­duct of super­uni­verse af­fairs. Thus they be­come won­der­ful ad­vis­ers and wise teach­ers of the as­cend­ing pil­grims who are in res­i­dence on the ed­u­ca­tional spheres sur­round­ing the head­quar­ters worlds of the super­uni­verses.

25:3.14All con­cil­ia­tors serve un­der the gen­eral super­vi­sion of the An­cients of Days and un­der the im­me­di­ate di­rec­tion of the Im­age Aids un­til such time as they are ad­vanced to Par­a­dise. Dur­ing the Par­a­dise so­journ they re­port to the Mas­ter Spirit who pre­sides over the super­uni­verse of their ori­gin.

25:3.15The super­uni­verse reg­istries do not enu­mer­ate those con­cil­ia­tors who have passed be­yond their ju­ris­dic­tion, and such com­mis­sions are widely scat­tered through the grand uni­verse. The last re­port of reg­istry on Uversa gives the num­ber op­er­at­ing in Or­von­ton as al­most eigh­teen tril­lion com­mis­sions—over sev­enty tril­lion in­di­vid­u­als. But these are only a very small frac­tion of the mul­ti­tude of con­cil­ia­tors that have been cre­ated in Or­von­ton; that num­ber is of an al­to­gether higher mag­ni­tude and is the equiv­a­lent of the to­tal num­ber of Ha­vona Servi­tals, with al­lowances for the trans­mu­ta­tion into Grad­u­ate Guides.

25:3.16From time to time, as the num­bers of the super­uni­verse con­cil­ia­tors in­crease, they are trans­lated to the coun­cil of per­fec­tion on Par­a­dise, from which they sub­se­quently emerge as the co-or­di­nat­ing corps evolved by the In­fi­nite Spirit for the uni­verse of uni­verses, a mar­velous group of be­ings which is con­stantly in­creas­ing in num­bers and ef­fi­ciency. By ex­pe­ri­en­tial as­cent and Par­a­dise train­ing they have ac­quired a unique grasp of the emerg­ing re­al­ity of the Su­preme Be­ing, and they roam the uni­verse of uni­verses on spe­cial as­sign­ment.

25:3.17The mem­bers of a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion are never sep­a­rated. A group of four for­ever serve to­gether just as they were orig­i­nally as­so­ci­ated. Even in their glo­ri­fied ser­vice they con­tinue to func­tion as quar­tets of ac­cu­mu­lated cos­mic ex­pe­ri­ence and per­fected ex­pe­ri­en­tial wis­dom. They are eter­nally as­so­ci­ated as the em­bod­i­ment of the su­preme jus­tice of time and space.

• Master Physical Controllers subject to c.c.

29:4.151. As­so­ciate Power Di­rec­tors. These mar­velously ef­fi­cient be­ings are in­trusted with the as­sign­ment and dis­patch of all or­ders of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers in ac­cor­dance with the ever-shift­ing needs of the con­stantly chang­ing en­ergy sta­tus of the realms. The vast re­serves of the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are main­tained on the head­quar­ters worlds of the mi­nor sec­tors, and from these con­cen­tra­tion points they are pe­ri­od­i­cally dis­patched by the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors to the head­quar­ters of the uni­verses, con­stel­la­tions, and sys­tems, and to the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. When thus as­signed, the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are pro­vi­sion­ally sub­ject to the or­ders of the di­vine ex­e­cu­tion­ers of the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions but are oth­er­wise solely amenable to their as­so­ciate di­rec­tors and to the Su­preme Power Cen­ters.

• executions carried out with consent of Most High

50:2.6The rov­ing com­mis­sions of con­cil­ia­tors serve and sup­ple­ment the plan­e­tary tri­bu­nals, and both spirit and phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are sub­ject to the find­ings of these con­cil­ia­tors. But no ar­bi­trary ex­e­cu­tion is ever car­ried out with­out the con­sent of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, for the “Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

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.

44:0.17There are cer­tain types of be­ings who are ca­pa­ble of dis­cern­ing the re­al­ity of the crea­tures of both the spirit and the ma­te­rial worlds. Be­long­ing to this class are the so-called fourth crea­tures of the Ha­vona Servi­tals and the fourth crea­tures of the con­cil­ia­tors. The an­gels of time and space are en­dowed with the abil­ity to dis­cern both spirit and ma­te­rial be­ings as also are the as­cend­ing mor­tals sub­se­quent to de­liv­er­ance from the life in the flesh. Af­ter at­tain­ment of the higher spirit lev­els the as­cend­ers are able to rec­og­nize ma­te­rial, mor­ontia, and spirit re­al­i­ties.

47:0.4The seven man­sion worlds are in charge of the mor­ontia super­vi­sors and the Mel­chiz­e­deks. There is an act­ing gov­er­nor on each world who is di­rectly re­spon­si­ble to the Je­ru­sem rulers. The Uversa con­cil­ia­tors main­tain head­quar­ters on each of the man­sion worlds, while ad­join­ing is the lo­cal ren­dezvous of the Tech­ni­cal Ad­vis­ers. The re­ver­sion di­rec­tors and ce­les­tial ar­ti­sans main­tain group head­quar­ters on each of these worlds. The spironga func­tion from man­sion world num­ber two on­ward, while all seven, in com­mon with the other tran­si­tional-cul­ture plan­ets and the head­quar­ters world, are abun­dantly pro­vided with sporna­gia of stan­dard cre­ation.

39:4.5It is not the mis­sion of these an­gels to de­feat or to de­lay jus­tice but rather to in­sure that unerring jus­tice is dealt out with gen­er­ous mercy in fair­ness to all crea­tures. These ser­a­phim of­ten func­tion on the lo­cal worlds, com­monly ap­pear­ing be­fore the ref­eree trios of the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions—the courts for mi­nor mis­un­der­stand­ings. Many who at one time served as jus­tice guides in the lower realms later ap­pear as Voices of Mercy in the higher spheres and on Sal­ving­ton.

37:8.6The Uni­ver­sal Con­cil­ia­tors are the trav­el­ing courts of the uni­verses of time and space, func­tion­ing from the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds up through ev­ery sec­tion of the lo­cal uni­verse and on be­yond. These ref­er­ees are reg­is­tered on Uversa; the ex­act num­ber op­er­at­ing in Neb­a­don is not of rec­ord, but I es­ti­mate that there are in the neigh­bor­hood of one hun­dred mil­lion con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions in our lo­cal uni­verse.

114:5.1The ac­tual ad­min­is­tra­tion of Uran­tia is in­deed dif­fi­cult to de­scribe. There ex­ists no for­mal gov­ern­ment along the lines of uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion, such as sep­a­rate leg­isla­tive, ex­ec­u­tive, and ju­di­cial de­part­ments. The twenty-four coun­selors come the near­est to be­ing the leg­isla­tive branch of the plan­e­tary gov­ern­ment. The gov­er­nor gen­eral is a pro­vi­sional and ad­vi­sory chief ex­ec­u­tive with the veto power res­i­dent in the Most High ob­server. And there are no ab­so­lutely au­thor­i­ta­tive ju­di­cial pow­ers op­er­a­tive on the planet—only the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions.

114:5.2A ma­jor­ity of the prob­lems in­volv­ing ser­a­phim and mid­way­ers are, by mu­tual con­sent, de­cided by the gov­er­nor gen­eral. But ex­cept when voic­ing the man­dates of the twenty-four coun­selors, his rul­ings are all sub­ject to ap­peal to con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions, to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties con­sti­tuted for plan­e­tary func­tion, or even to the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign of Sa­ta­nia.

23:3.2The uni­verse is well sup­plied with spir­its who uti­lize grav­ity for pur­poses of tran­sit; they can go any­where any time—in­stan­ter—but they are not per­sons. Cer­tain other grav­ity tra­versers are per­sonal be­ings, such as Grav­ity Mes­sen­gers and Tran­scen­den­tal Re­cord­ers, but they are not avail­able to the su­per- and the lo­cal uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tors. The worlds teem with an­gels and men and other highly per­sonal be­ings, but they are hand­i­capped by time and space: The limit of ve­loc­ity for most nonenseraphimed be­ings is 186,280 miles of your world per sec­ond of your time; the mid­way crea­tures and cer­tain oth­ers can, of­ten do, at­tain dou­ble ve­loc­ity—372,560 miles per sec­ond—while the ser­a­phim and oth­ers can tra­verse space at triple ve­loc­ity, about 558,840 miles per sec­ond. There are, how­ever, no tran­sit or mes­sen­ger per­son­al­i­ties who func­tion be­tween the in­stan­ta­neous ve­loc­i­ties of the grav­ity tra­versers and the com­par­a­tively slow speeds of the ser­a­phim, ex­cept the Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers.