Gardens of Eden

51:6.1On most of the in­hab­ited worlds the Gar­dens of Eden re­main as su­perb cul­tural cen­ters and con­tinue to func­tion as the so­cial pat­terns of plan­e­tary con­duct and us­age age af­ter age. Even in early times when the vi­o­let peo­ples are rel­a­tively seg­re­gated, their schools re­ceive suit­able can­di­dates from among the world races, while the in­dus­trial de­vel­op­ments of the gar­den open up new chan­nels of com­mer­cial in­ter­course. Thus do the Adams and Eves and their progeny con­tribute to the sud­den ex­pan­sion of cul­ture and to the rapid im­prove­ment of the evo­lu­tion­ary races of their worlds. And all of these re­la­tion­ships are aug­mented and sealed by the amal­ga­ma­tion of the evo­lu­tion­ary races and the sons of Adam, re­sult­ing in the im­me­di­ate up­step­ping of bi­o­logic sta­tus, the quick­en­ing of in­tel­lec­tual po­ten­tial, and the en­hance­ment of spir­i­tual re­cep­tiv­ity.

51:6.2On nor­mal worlds the gar­den head­quar­ters of the vi­o­let race be­comes the sec­ond cen­ter of world cul­ture and, jointly with the head­quar­ters city of the Plan­e­tary Prince, sets the pace for the de­vel­op­ment of civ­i­liza­tion. For cen­turies the city head­quar­ters schools of the Plan­e­tary Prince and the gar­den schools of Adam and Eve are con­tem­po­rary. They are usu­ally not very far apart, and they work to­gether in har­mo­nious co-op­er­a­tion.

51:6.3Think what it would mean on your world if some­where in the Lev­ant there were a world cen­ter of civ­i­liza­tion, a great plan­e­tary uni­ver­sity of cul­ture, which had func­tioned un­in­ter­rupt­edly for 37,000 years. And again, pause to con­sider how the moral au­thor­ity of even such an an­cient cen­ter would be re­in­forced were there sit­u­ated not far-dis­tant still an­other and older head­quar­ters of ce­les­tial min­istry whose tra­di­tions would ex­ert a cu­mu­la­tive force of 500,000 years of in­te­grated evo­lu­tion­ary in­flu­ence. It is cus­tom which even­tu­ally spreads the ide­als of Eden to a whole world.

51:6.4The schools of the Plan­e­tary Prince are pri­mar­ily con­cerned with phi­los­o­phy, re­li­gion, morals, and the higher in­tel­lec­tual and artis­tic achieve­ments. The gar­den schools of Adam and Eve are usu­ally de­voted to prac­ti­cal arts, fun­da­men­tal in­tel­lec­tual train­ing, so­cial cul­ture, eco­nomic de­vel­op­ment, trade re­la­tions, phys­i­cal ef­fi­ciency, and civil gov­ern­ment. Even­tu­ally these world cen­ters amal­ga­mate, but this ac­tual af­fil­i­a­tion some­times does not oc­cur un­til the times of the first Mag­is­te­rial Son.

51:6.5The con­tin­u­ing ex­is­tence of the Plan­e­tary Adam and Eve, to­gether with the pure-line nu­cleus of the vi­o­let race, im­parts that sta­bil­ity of growth to Edenic cul­ture by virtue of which it comes to act upon the civ­i­liza­tion of a world with the com­pelling force of tra­di­tion. In these im­mor­tal Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters we en­counter the last and the in­dis­pens­able link con­nect­ing God with man, bridg­ing the al­most in­fi­nite gulf be­tween the eter­nal Cre­ator and the low­est fi­nite per­son­al­i­ties of time. Here is a be­ing of high ori­gin who is phys­i­cal, ma­te­rial, even a sex crea­ture like Uran­tia mor­tals, one who can see and com­pre­hend the in­vis­i­ble Plan­e­tary Prince and in­ter­pret him to the mor­tal crea­tures of the realm, for the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters are able to see all of the lower or­ders of spirit be­ings; they vi­su­al­ize the Plan­e­tary Prince and his en­tire staff, vis­i­ble and in­vis­i­ble.

51:6.6With the pass­ing of cen­turies, through the amal­ga­ma­tion of their progeny with the races of men, this same Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter be­come ac­cepted as the com­mon an­ces­tors of man­kind, the com­mon par­ents of the now blended de­scen­dants of the evo­lu­tion­ary races. It is in­tended that mor­tals who start out from an in­hab­ited world have the ex­pe­ri­ence of rec­og­niz­ing seven fa­thers:

51:6.71. The bi­o­logic fa­ther—the fa­ther in the flesh.

51:6.82. The fa­ther of the realm—the Plan­e­tary Adam.

51:6.93. The fa­ther of the spheres—the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign.

51:6.104. The Most High Fa­ther—the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther.

51:6.115. The uni­verse Fa­ther—the Cre­ator Son and su­preme ruler of the lo­cal cre­ations.

51:6.126. The su­per-Fa­thers—the An­cients of Days who gov­ern the super­uni­verse.

51:6.137. The spirit or Ha­vona Fa­ther—the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, who dwells on Par­a­dise and be­stows his spirit to live and work in the minds of the lowly crea­tures who in­habit the uni­verse of uni­verses.

43:6.2About one half of Eden­tia is de­voted to the ex­qui­site gar­dens of the Most Highs, and these gar­dens are among the most en­tranc­ing mor­ontia cre­ations of the lo­cal uni­verse. This ex­plains why the ex­traor­di­nar­ily beau­ti­ful places on the in­hab­ited worlds of Nor­la­ti­adek are so of­ten called “the gar­den of Eden.”

51:3.2These Gar­dens of Eden are so named in honor of Eden­tia, the con­stel­la­tion cap­i­tal, and be­cause they are pat­terned af­ter the botanic grandeur of the head­quar­ters world of the Most High Fa­thers. Such gar­den homes are usu­ally lo­cated in a se­cluded sec­tion and in a near-tropic zone. They are won­der­ful cre­ations on an av­er­age world. You can judge noth­ing of these beau­ti­ful cen­ters of cul­ture by the frag­men­tary ac­count of the aborted de­vel­op­ment of such an un­der­tak­ing on Uran­tia.

73:4.1When Ma­te­rial Sons, the bi­o­logic up­lifters, be­gin their so­journ on an evo­lu­tion­ary world, their place of abode is of­ten called the Gar­den of Eden be­cause it is char­ac­ter­ized by the flo­ral beauty and the botanic grandeur of Eden­tia, the con­stel­la­tion cap­i­tal. Van well knew of these cus­toms and ac­cord­ingly pro­vided that the en­tire penin­sula be given over to the Gar­den. Pas­turage and an­i­mal hus­bandry were pro­jected for the ad­join­ing main­land. Of an­i­mal life, only the birds and the var­i­ous do­mes­ti­cated species were to be found in the park. Van’s in­struc­tions were that Eden was to be a gar­den, and only a gar­den. No an­i­mals were ever slaugh­tered within its precincts. All flesh eaten by the Gar­den work­ers through­out all the years of con­struc­tion was brought in from the herds main­tained un­der guard on the main­land.