four and twenty counselors

• Assigned Sentinels are ex officio heads of

24:5.3Within a lo­cal cre­ation the As­signed Sen­tinels serve in ro­ta­tion, be­ing trans­ferred from sys­tem to sys­tem. They are usu­ally changed ev­ery mil­len­nium of lo­cal uni­verse time. They are among the high­est rank­ing per­son­al­i­ties sta­tioned on a sys­tem cap­i­tal, but they never par­tic­i­pate in de­lib­er­a­tions con­cerned with sys­tem af­fairs. In the lo­cal sys­tems they serve as the ex of­fi­cio heads of the four and twenty ad­min­is­tra­tors hail­ing from the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds, but oth­er­wise, as­cend­ing mor­tals have lit­tle con­tact with them. The sen­tinels are al­most ex­clu­sively con­cerned in keep­ing the As­so­ciate In­spec­tor of their uni­verse fully in­formed on all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the wel­fare and state of the sys­tems of their as­sign­ment.

• meet around throne of presiding archangels

34:4.11These are the “seven spir­its of God,” “like lamps burn­ing be­fore the throne,” which the prophet saw in the sym­bols of vi­sion. But he did not see the seats of the four and twenty sen­tinels about these seven ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its. This rec­ord rep­re­sents the con­fu­sion of two pre­sen­ta­tions, one per­tain­ing to the uni­verse head­quar­ters and the other to the sys­tem cap­i­tal. The seats of the four and twenty el­ders are on Je­ru­sem, the head­quar­ters of your lo­cal sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds.

• also known as Urantia advisory council
• last of group assembled 1900 years ago
• meet around throne of presiding archangels
• personal agents of Michael and Gabriel on Jerusem

45:4.1At the cen­ter of the seven an­gelic res­i­den­tial cir­cles on Je­ru­sem is lo­cated the head­quar­ters of the Uran­tia ad­vi­sory coun­cil, the four and twenty coun­selors. John the Rev­e­la­tor called them the four and twenty el­ders: “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four and twenty el­ders sit­ting, clothed in white rai­ment.” The throne in the cen­ter of this group is the judg­ment seat of the pre­sid­ing arch­an­gel, the throne of the res­ur­rec­tion roll call of mercy and jus­tice for all Sa­ta­nia. This judg­ment seat has al­ways been on Je­ru­sem, but the twenty-four sur­round­ing seats were placed in po­si­tion no more than nine­teen hun­dred years ago, soon af­ter Christ Mi­chael was el­e­vated to the full sov­er­eignty of Neb­a­don. These four and twenty coun­selors are his per­sonal agents on Je­ru­sem, and they have au­thor­ity to rep­re­sent the Mas­ter Son in all mat­ters con­cern­ing the roll calls of Sa­ta­nia and in many other phases of the scheme of mor­tal as­cen­sion on the iso­lated worlds of the sys­tem. They are the des­ig­nated agents for ex­e­cut­ing the spe­cial re­quests of Ga­briel and the un­usual man­dates of Mi­chael.

• recruited from all Urantia races

45:4.2These twenty-four coun­selors have been re­cruited from the eight Uran­tia races, and the last of this group were as­sem­bled at the time of the res­ur­rec­tion roll call of Mi­chael, nine­teen hun­dred years ago. This Uran­tia ad­vi­sory coun­cil is made up of the fol­low­ing mem­bers:

45:4.31. On­a­gar, the mas­ter mind of the pre-Plan­e­tary Prince age, who di­rected his fel­lows in the wor­ship of “The Breath Giver.”

45:4.42. Mansant, the great teacher of the post-Plan­e­tary Prince age on Uran­tia, who pointed his fel­lows to the ven­er­a­tion of “The Great Light.”

45:4.53. Ona­mo­na­lon­ton, a far-dis­tant leader of the red man and the one who di­rected this race from the wor­ship of many gods to the ven­er­a­tion of “The Great Spirit.”

45:4.64. Or­landof, a prince of the blue men and their leader in the rec­og­ni­tion of the di­vin­ity of “The Su­preme Chief.”

45:4.75. Por­shunta, the or­a­cle of the ex­tinct or­ange race and the leader of this peo­ple in the wor­ship of “The Great Teacher.”

45:4.86. Singlang­ton, the first of the yel­low men to teach and lead his peo­ple in the wor­ship of “One Truth” in­stead of many. Thou­sands of years ago the yel­low man knew of the one God.

45:4.97. Fan­tad, the de­liv­erer of the green men from dark­ness and their leader in the wor­ship of “The One Source of Life.”

45:4.108. Or­vonon, the en­light­ener of the in­digo races and their leader in the one­time ser­vice of “The God of Gods.”

• members › 9. Adam

45:4.119. Adam, the dis­cred­ited but re­ha­bil­i­tated plan­e­tary fa­ther of Uran­tia, a Ma­te­rial Son of God who was rel­e­gated to the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, but who sur­vived and was sub­se­quently el­e­vated to this po­si­tion by the de­cree of Mi­chael.

• members › 10. Eve

45:4.1210. Eve, the mother of the vi­o­let race of Uran­tia, who suf­fered the penalty of de­fault with her mate and was also re­ha­bil­i­tated with him and as­signed to serve with this group of mor­tal sur­vivors.

45:4.1311. Enoch, the first of the mor­tals of Uran­tia to fuse with the Thought Ad­juster dur­ing the mor­tal life in the flesh.

45:4.1412. Moses, the eman­ci­pa­tor of a rem­nant of the sub­merged vi­o­let race and the in­sti­ga­tor of the re­vival of the wor­ship of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther un­der the name of “The God of Is­rael.”

45:4.1513. Eli­jah, a trans­lated soul of bril­liant spir­i­tual achieve­ment dur­ing the post-Ma­te­rial Son age.

• members › 14. Machiventa Melchizedek
• one always present on Urantia as resident governor general

45:4.1614. Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek, the only Son of this or­der to be­stow him­self upon the Uran­tia races. While still num­bered as a Mel­chiz­e­dek, he has be­come “for­ever a min­is­ter of the Most Highs,” eter­nally as­sum­ing the as­sign­ment of ser­vice as a mor­tal as­cender, hav­ing so­journed on Uran­tia in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh at Salem in the days of Abra­ham. This Mel­chiz­e­dek has lat­terly been pro­claimed vicegerent Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia with head­quar­ters on Je­ru­sem and au­thor­ity to act in be­half of Mi­chael, who is ac­tu­ally the Plan­e­tary Prince of the world whereon he ex­pe­ri­enced his ter­mi­nal be­stowal in hu­man form. Not­with­stand­ing this, Uran­tia is still super­vised by suc­ces­sive res­i­dent gov­er­nors gen­eral, mem­bers of the four and twenty coun­selors.

45:4.1715. John the Bap­tist, the fore­run­ner of Mi­chael’s mis­sion on Uran­tia and, in the flesh, dis­tant cousin of the Son of Man.

• members › 16. 1-2-3 the first

45:4.1816. 1-2-3 the First, the leader of the loyal mid­way crea­tures in the ser­vice of Ga­briel at the time of the Cali­gas­tia be­trayal, el­e­vated to this po­si­tion by Mi­chael soon af­ter his en­trance upon un­con­di­tioned sov­er­eignty.

• members › exempt from ascension regime

45:4.19These se­lected per­son­al­i­ties are ex­empt from the as­cen­sion regime for the time be­ing, on Ga­briel’s re­quest, and we have no idea how long they may serve in this ca­pac­ity.

• members › 17.– 24. seats are only temporarily filled

45:4.20Seats num­bers 17, 18, 19, and 20 are not per­ma­nently oc­cu­pied. They are tem­porar­ily filled by the unan­i­mous con­sent of the six­teen per­ma­nent mem­bers, be­ing kept open for later as­sign­ment to as­cend­ing mor­tals from the pres­ent postbestowal Son age on Uran­tia.

45:4.21Num­bers 21, 22, 23, and 24 are like­wise tem­porar­ily filled while be­ing held in re­serve for the great teach­ers of other and sub­se­quent ages which un­doubt­edly will fol­low the pres­ent age. Eras of the Mag­is­te­rial Sons and Teacher Sons and the ages of light and life are to be an­tic­i­pated on Uran­tia, re­gard­less of un­ex­pected vis­i­ta­tions of di­vine Sons which may or may not oc­cur.

• pass upon ascenders’ attainment of socialization

45:7.7From time to time Je­ru­sem cit­i­zens pre­sent them­selves to the Mel­chiz­e­dek ex­am­in­ers, who cer­tify to their at­tain­ment of mor­ontia wis­dom. Then they go be­fore the ex­am­in­ing corps of the Bril­liant Evening Stars or their des­ig­nates, who as­cer­tain the de­gree of spirit in­sight. Next they ap­pear in the pres­ence of the four and twenty coun­selors and their as­so­ciates, who pass upon their sta­tus of ex­pe­ri­en­tial at­tain­ment of so­cial­iza­tion. These three fac­tors are then car­ried to the cit­i­zen­ship reg­is­trars of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment, who quickly com­pute the mota sta­tus and as­sign suf­frage qual­i­fi­ca­tions in ac­cor­dance there­with.

• approve morontia progressors’ plans for future course

48:6.5On the man­sion worlds the se­raphic evan­gels will help you to choose wisely among the op­tional routes to Eden­tia, Sal­ving­ton, Uversa, and Ha­vona. If there are a num­ber of equally ad­vis­able routes, these will be put be­fore you, and you will be per­mit­ted to se­lect the one that most ap­peals to you. These ser­a­phim then make rec­om­men­da­tions to the four and twenty ad­vis­ers on Je­ru­sem con­cern­ing that course which would be most ad­van­ta­geous for each as­cend­ing soul.

• all were real leaders on Urantia; all Jerusem citizens (except Machiventa)

50:2.2The Plan­e­tary Princes may at any time seek the coun­sel of the Mel­chiz­e­deks, their for­mer in­struc­tors and spon­sors, but they are not ar­bi­trar­ily re­quired to ask for such as­sis­tance, and if such aid is not vol­un­tar­ily re­quested, the Mel­chiz­e­deks do not in­ter­fere with the plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion. These world rulers may also avail them­selves of the ad­vice of the four and twenty coun­selors, as­sem­bled from the be­stowal worlds of the sys­tem. In Sa­ta­nia these coun­selors are at pres­ent all na­tives of Uran­tia. And there is an anal­o­gous coun­cil of sev­enty at the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters also se­lected from the evo­lu­tion­ary be­ings of the realms.

• also known as Urantia advisory council
• members › 9. Adam
• members › 10. Eve

76:6.3Adam and Eve quickly passed through the worlds of pro­gres­sive as­cen­sion un­til they at­tained cit­i­zen­ship on Je­ru­sem, once again to be res­i­dents of the planet of their ori­gin but this time as mem­bers of a dif­fer­ent or­der of uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties. They left Je­ru­sem as per­ma­nent cit­i­zens—Sons of God; they re­turned as as­cen­dant cit­i­zens—sons of man. They were im­me­di­ately at­tached to the Uran­tia ser­vice on the sys­tem cap­i­tal, later be­ing as­signed mem­ber­ship among the four and twenty coun­selors who con­sti­tute the pres­ent ad­vi­sory-con­trol body of Uran­tia.

• members › 16. 1-2-3 the first

77:9.51-2-3 the first, the el­dest of the pri­mary or­der, was re­leased from im­me­di­ate plan­e­tary du­ties shortly af­ter Pen­te­cost. This no­ble mid­wayer stood stead­fast with Van and Amadon dur­ing the tragic days of the plan­e­tary re­bel­lion, and his fear­less lead­er­ship was in­stru­men­tal in re­duc­ing the ca­su­al­ties in his or­der. He serves at pres­ent on Je­ru­sem as a mem­ber of the twenty-four coun­selors, hav­ing al­ready func­tioned as gov­er­nor gen­eral of Uran­tia once since Pen­te­cost.

• members › 14. Machiventa Melchizedek

93:10.5Ma­chi­venta con­tin­ued as a plan­e­tary re­ceiver up to the times of the tri­umph of Mi­chael on Uran­tia. Sub­se­quently, he was at­tached to the Uran­tia ser­vice on Je­ru­sem as one of the four and twenty di­rec­tors, only just re­cently hav­ing been el­e­vated to the po­si­tion of per­sonal am­bas­sador on Je­ru­sem of the Cre­ator Son, bear­ing the ti­tle Vicegerent Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia. It is our be­lief that, as long as Uran­tia re­mains an in­hab­ited planet, Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek will not be fully re­turned to the du­ties of his or­der of son­ship but will re­main, speak­ing in the terms of time, for­ever a plan­e­tary min­is­ter rep­re­sent­ing Christ Mi­chael.

• members › 14. Machiventa Melchizedek

93:10.9It has long been the opin­ion of our or­der that Ma­chi­venta’s pres­ence on the Je­ru­sem corps of Uran­tia di­rec­tors, the four and twenty coun­selors, is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to war­rant the be­lief that he is des­tined to fol­low the mor­tals of Uran­tia on through the uni­verse scheme of pro­gres­sion and as­cen­sion even to the Par­a­dise Corps of the Fi­nal­ity. We know that Adam and Eve are thus des­tined to ac­com­pany their earth fel­lows on the Par­a­dise ad­ven­ture when Uran­tia has be­come set­tled in light and life.

• established by Michael
• one always present on Urantia as resident governor general

114:1.1The orig­i­nal sov­er­eignty of Uran­tia was held in trust by the sov­er­eign of the Sa­ta­nia sys­tem. It was first del­e­gated by him to a joint com­mis­sion of Mel­chiz­e­deks and Life Car­ri­ers, and this group func­tioned on Uran­tia un­til the ar­rival of a reg­u­larly con­sti­tuted Plan­e­tary Prince. Sub­se­quent to the down­fall of Prince Cali­gas­tia, at the time of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion, Uran­tia had no sure and set­tled re­la­tion­ship with the lo­cal uni­verse and its ad­min­is­tra­tive di­vi­sions un­til the com­ple­tion of Mi­chael’s be­stowal in the flesh, when he was pro­claimed, by the Union of Days, Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia. Such a procla­ma­tion in surety and in prin­ci­ple for­ever set­tled the sta­tus of your world, but in prac­tice the Sov­er­eign Cre­ator Son made no ges­ture of per­sonal ad­min­is­tra­tion of the planet aside from the es­tab­lish­ment of the Je­ru­sem com­mis­sion of twenty-four for­mer Uran­tians with au­thor­ity to rep­re­sent him in the gov­ern­ment of Uran­tia and all other quar­an­tined plan­ets in the sys­tem. One of this coun­cil is now al­ways res­i­dent on Uran­tia as res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral.

• all were real leaders on Urantia; all Jerusem citizens (except Machiventa)
• nominated by cabinet of Lanaforge

114:2.1Since the times of Mi­chael’s be­stowal on your world the gen­eral man­age­ment of Uran­tia has been in­trusted to a spe­cial group on Je­ru­sem of twenty-four one­time Uran­tians. Qual­i­fi­ca­tion for mem­ber­ship on this com­mis­sion is un­known to us, but we have ob­served that those who have been thus com­mis­sioned have all been con­trib­u­tors to the en­larg­ing sov­er­eignty of the Su­preme in the sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia. By na­ture they were all real lead­ers when they func­tioned on Uran­tia, and (ex­cept­ing Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek) these qual­i­ties of lead­er­ship have been fur­ther aug­mented by man­sion world ex­pe­ri­ence and sup­ple­mented by the train­ing of Je­ru­sem cit­i­zen­ship. Mem­bers are nom­i­nated to the twenty-four by the cab­i­net of Lanaforge, sec­onded by the Most Highs of Eden­tia, ap­proved by the As­signed Sen­tinel of Je­ru­sem, and ap­pointed by Ga­briel of Sal­ving­ton in ac­cor­dance with the man­date of Mi­chael. The tem­po­rary ap­pointees func­tion just as fully as do the per­ma­nent mem­bers of this com­mis­sion of spe­cial super­vi­sors.

• direct many matters resulting from Michael’s bestowal

114:2.2This board of plan­e­tary di­rec­tors is es­pe­cially con­cerned with the super­vi­sion of those ac­tiv­i­ties on this world which re­sult from the fact that Mi­chael here ex­pe­ri­enced his ter­mi­nal be­stowal. They are kept in close and im­me­di­ate touch with Mi­chael by the li­ai­son ac­tiv­i­ties of a cer­tain Bril­liant Evening Star, the iden­ti­cal be­ing who at­tended upon Je­sus through­out the mor­tal be­stowal.

114:2.3At the pres­ent time one John, known to you as “the Bap­tist,” is chair­man of this coun­cil when it is in ses­sion on Je­ru­sem. But the ex of­fi­cio head of this coun­cil is the As­signed Sen­tinel of Sa­ta­nia, the di­rect and per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the As­so­ciate In­spec­tor on Sal­ving­ton and of the Su­preme Ex­ec­u­tive of Or­von­ton.

• advisory supervisors of rebellion-isolated worlds

114:2.4The mem­bers of this same com­mis­sion of for­mer Uran­tians also act as ad­vi­sory super­vi­sors of the thirty-six other re­bel­lion-iso­lated worlds of the sys­tem; they per­form a very valu­able ser­vice in keep­ing Lanaforge, the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign, in close and sym­pa­thetic touch with the af­fairs of these plan­ets, which still re­main more or less un­der the over­con­trol of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers of Nor­la­ti­adek. These twenty-four coun­selors make fre­quent trips as in­di­vid­u­als to each of the quar­an­tined plan­ets, es­pe­cially to Uran­tia.

• similar commissions exist for all quarantined worlds

114:2.5Each of the other iso­lated worlds is ad­vised by sim­i­lar and vary­ing sized com­mis­sions of its one­time in­hab­i­tants, but these other com­mis­sions are sub­or­di­nate to the Uran­tian group of twenty-four. While the mem­bers of the lat­ter com­mis­sion are thus ac­tively in­ter­ested in ev­ery phase of hu­man prog­ress on each quar­an­tined world in Sa­ta­nia, they are es­pe­cially and par­tic­u­larly con­cerned with the wel­fare and ad­vance­ment of the mor­tal races of Uran­tia, for they im­me­di­ately and di­rectly super­vise the af­fairs of none of the plan­ets ex­cept Uran­tia, and even here their au­thor­ity is not com­plete ex­cept­ing in cer­tain do­mains con­cerned with mor­tal sur­vival.

114:2.6No one knows how long these twenty-four Uran­tia coun­selors will con­tinue in their pres­ent sta­tus, de­tached from the reg­u­lar pro­gram of uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties. They will no doubt con­tinue to serve in their pres­ent ca­pac­i­ties un­til some change in plan­e­tary sta­tus en­sues, such as the end of a dis­pen­sa­tion, the as­sump­tion of full au­thor­ity by Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek, the fi­nal ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion, or the reap­pear­ance of Mi­chael on the world of his fi­nal be­stowal. The pres­ent res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral of Uran­tia seems in­clined to the opin­ion that all but Ma­chi­venta may be re­leased for Par­a­dise as­cen­sion the mo­ment the sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia is re­stored to the con­stel­la­tion cir­cuits. But other opin­ions are also cur­rent.

• function somewhat like a legislative branch

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.