guardian angels

113:0.1Hav­ing pre­sented the nar­ra­tives of the Min­is­ter­ing Spir­its of Time and the Mes­sen­ger Hosts of Space, we come to the con­sid­er­a­tion of the guard­ian an­gels, ser­a­phim de­voted to the min­istry to in­di­vid­ual mor­tals, for whose el­e­va­tion and per­fec­tion all of the vast sur­vival scheme of spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion has been pro­vided. In past ages on Uran­tia, these des­tiny guard­i­ans were about the only group of an­gels that had rec­og­ni­tion. The plan­e­tary ser­a­phim are in­deed min­is­ter­ing spir­its sent forth to do ser­vice for those who shall sur­vive. These at­tend­ing ser­a­phim have func­tioned as the spir­i­tual helpers of mor­tal man in all the great events of the past and the pres­ent. In many a rev­e­la­tion “the word was spo­ken by an­gels”; many of the man­dates of heaven have been “re­ceived by the min­istry of an­gels.”

113:0.2Ser­a­phim are the tra­di­tional an­gels of heaven; they are the min­is­ter­ing spir­its who live so near you and do so much for you. They have min­is­tered on Uran­tia since the ear­li­est times of hu­man in­tel­li­gence.

113:1.1The teach­ing about guard­ian an­gels is not a myth; cer­tain groups of hu­man be­ings do ac­tu­ally have per­sonal an­gels. It was in rec­og­ni­tion of this that Je­sus, in speak­ing of the chil­dren of the heav­enly king­dom, said: “Take heed that you de­spise not one of these lit­tle ones, for I say to you, their an­gels do al­ways be­hold the pres­ence of the spirit of my Fa­ther.”

113:1.2Orig­i­nally, the ser­a­phim were def­i­nitely as­signed to the sep­a­rate Uran­tia races. But since the be­stowal of Mi­chael, they are as­signed in ac­cor­dance with hu­man in­tel­li­gence, spir­i­tu­al­ity, and des­tiny. In­tel­lec­tu­ally, man­kind is di­vided into three classes:

113:1.31. The sub­nor­mal minded—those who do not ex­er­cise nor­mal will power; those who do not make av­er­age de­ci­sions. This class em­braces those who can­not com­pre­hend God; they lack ca­pac­ity for the in­tel­li­gent wor­ship of De­ity. The sub­nor­mal be­ings of Uran­tia have a corps of ser­a­phim, one com­pany, with one bat­tal­ion of cheru­bim, as­signed to min­is­ter to them and to wit­ness that jus­tice and mercy are ex­tended to them in the life strug­gles of the sphere.

113:1.42. The av­er­age, nor­mal type of hu­man mind. From the stand­point of se­raphic min­istry, most men and women are grouped in seven classes in ac­cor­dance with their sta­tus in mak­ing the cir­cles of hu­man prog­ress and spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment.

113:1.53. The super­nor­mal minded—those of great de­ci­sion and un­doubted po­ten­tial of spir­i­tual achieve­ment; men and women who en­joy more or less con­tact with their in­dwelling Ad­justers; mem­bers of the var­i­ous re­serve corps of des­tiny. No mat­ter in what cir­cle a hu­man hap­pens to be, if such an in­di­vid­ual be­comes en­rolled in any of the sev­eral re­serve corps of des­tiny, right then and there, per­sonal ser­a­phim are as­signed, and from that time un­til the earthly ca­reer is fin­ished, that mor­tal will en­joy the con­tin­u­ous min­istry and un­ceas­ing watch­care of a guard­ian an­gel. Also, when any hu­man be­ing makes the su­preme de­ci­sion, when there is a real be­trothal with the Ad­juster, a per­sonal guard­ian is im­me­di­ately as­signed to that soul.

113:1.6In the min­istry to so-called nor­mal be­ings, se­raphic as­sign­ments are made in ac­cor­dance with the hu­man at­tain­ment of the cir­cles of in­tel­lec­tu­al­ity and spir­i­tu­al­ity. You start out in your mind of mor­tal in­vest­ment in the sev­enth cir­cle and jour­ney in­ward in the task of self-un­der­stand­ing, self-con­quest, and self-mas­tery; and cir­cle by cir­cle you ad­vance un­til (if nat­u­ral death does not ter­mi­nate your ca­reer and trans­fer your strug­gles to the man­sion worlds) you reach the first or in­ner cir­cle of rel­a­tive con­tact and com­mu­nion with the in­dwelling Ad­juster.

113:1.7Hu­man be­ings in the ini­tial or sev­enth cir­cle have one guard­ian an­gel with one com­pany of as­sist­ing cheru­bim as­signed to the watch­care and cus­tody of one thou­sand mor­tals. In the sixth cir­cle, a se­raphic pair with one com­pany of cheru­bim is as­signed to guide these as­cend­ing mor­tals in groups of five hun­dred. When the fifth cir­cle is at­tained, hu­man be­ings are grouped in com­pa­nies of ap­prox­i­mately one hun­dred, and a pair of guard­ian ser­a­phim with a group of cheru­bim is placed in charge. Upon at­tain­ment of the fourth cir­cle, mor­tal be­ings are as­sem­bled in groups of ten, and again charge is given to a pair of ser­a­phim, as­sisted by one com­pany of cheru­bim.

113:1.8When a mor­tal mind breaks through the in­er­tia of an­i­mal legacy and at­tains the third cir­cle of hu­man in­tel­lec­tu­al­ity and ac­quired spir­i­tu­al­ity, a per­sonal an­gel (in re­al­ity two) will hence­forth be wholly and ex­clu­sively de­voted to this as­cend­ing mor­tal. And thus these hu­man souls, in ad­di­tion to the ever-pres­ent and in­creas­ingly ef­fi­cient in­dwelling Thought Ad­justers, re­ceive the un­di­vided as­sis­tance of these per­sonal guard­i­ans of des­tiny in all their ef­forts to fin­ish the third cir­cle, tra­verse the sec­ond, and at­tain the first.

• accompany defeated wards if remanded

25:8.10If an as­cend­ing pil­grim met de­feat in the De­ity ad­ven­ture while travers­ing Ha­vona in the com­pany of an as­cend­ing ser­a­phim, the guard­ian an­gel of the mor­tal ca­reer, she would elect to ac­com­pany her mor­tal as­so­ciate. These ser­a­phim al­ways vol­un­teer and are per­mit­ted to ac­com­pany their long-time mor­tal com­rades back to the ser­vice of time and space.

• part with mortal associates before flight to Havona

26:4.11The pil­grims of time are trans­ported past the dark grav­ity bod­ies of Ha­vona to the outer plan­e­tary cir­cuit by the trans­port per­son­al­i­ties of the pri­mary or­der of se­con­a­phim, op­er­at­ing from the head­quar­ters of the seven super­uni­verses. A ma­jor­ity, but not all, of the ser­a­phim of plan­e­tary and lo­cal uni­verse ser­vice who have been ac­cred­ited for the Par­a­dise as­cent will part with their mor­tal as­so­ciates be­fore the long flight to Ha­vona and will at once be­gin a long and in­tense train­ing for su­per­nal as­sign­ment, ex­pect­ing to achieve, as ser­a­phim, per­fec­tion of ex­is­tence and su­prem­acy of ser­vice. And this they do, hop­ing to re­join the pil­grims of time, to be reck­oned among those who for­ever fol­low the course of such mor­tals as have at­tained the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and have re­ceived as­sign­ment to the undis­closed ser­vice of the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity.

• hold survivors’ souls as sacred trust
• sponsor subjects’ new morontia form

30:4.15The phys­i­cal body of mor­tal flesh is not a part of the re­assem­bly of the sleep­ing sur­vivor; the phys­i­cal body has re­turned to dust. The ser­a­phim of as­sign­ment spon­sors the new body, the mor­ontia form, as the new life ve­hi­cle for the im­mor­tal soul and for the in­dwelling of the re­turned Ad­juster. The Ad­juster is the cus­to­dian of the spirit tran­script of the mind of the sleep­ing sur­vivor. The as­signed ser­a­phim is the keeper of the sur­viv­ing iden­tity—the im­mor­tal soul—as far as it has evolved. And when these two, the Ad­juster and the ser­a­phim, re­unite their per­son­al­ity trusts, the new in­di­vid­ual con­sti­tutes the res­ur­rec­tion of the old per­son­al­ity, the sur­vival of the evolv­ing mor­ontia iden­tity of the soul. Such a re­as­so­ci­a­tion of soul and Ad­juster is quite prop­erly called a res­ur­rec­tion, a re­assem­bly of per­son­al­ity fac­tors; but even this does not en­tirely ex­plain the reap­pear­ance of the sur­viv­ing per­son­al­ity. Though you will prob­a­bly never un­der­stand the fact of such an in­ex­pli­ca­ble trans­ac­tion, you will some­time ex­pe­ri­en­tially know the truth of it if you do not re­ject the plan of mor­tal sur­vival.

• attend youths in probationary nursery

47:2.6The guard­ian ser­a­phim at­tend these youths in the pro­ba­tion­ary nurs­ery on the fi­nal­i­ter world just as they spir­i­tu­ally min­is­ter to mor­tals on the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets, while the faith­ful sporna­gia min­is­ter to their phys­i­cal ne­ces­si­ties. And so do these chil­dren grow up on the tran­si­tion world un­til such time as they make their fi­nal choice.

• hold survivors’ souls as sacred trust

47:3.3The mor­tal-mind tran­scripts and the ac­tive crea­ture-mem­ory pat­terns as trans­formed from the ma­te­rial lev­els to the spir­i­tual are the in­di­vid­ual pos­ses­sion of the de­tached Thought Ad­justers; these spir­i­tized fac­tors of mind, mem­ory, and crea­ture per­son­al­ity are for­ever a part of such Ad­justers. The crea­ture mind-ma­trix and the pas­sive po­ten­tials of iden­tity are pres­ent in the mor­ontia soul in­trusted to the keep­ing of the se­raphic des­tiny guard­i­ans. And it is the re­unit­ing of the mor­ontia-soul trust of the ser­a­phim and the spirit-mind trust of the Ad­juster that re­assem­bles crea­ture per­son­al­ity and con­sti­tutes res­ur­rec­tion of a sleep­ing sur­vivor.

• hold survivors’ souls as sacred trust
• indispensable to terrestrial escape

49:6.41. Mor­tals of the dis­pen­sa­tional or group or­der of sur­vival. With the ar­rival of the first Ad­juster on an in­hab­ited world the guard­ian ser­a­phim also make their ap­pear­ance; they are in­dis­pens­able to ter­res­trial es­cape. Through­out the life-lapse pe­riod of the sleep­ing sur­vivors the spir­i­tual val­ues and eter­nal re­al­i­ties of their newly evolved and im­mor­tal souls are held as a sa­cred trust by the per­sonal or by the group guard­ian ser­a­phim.

• hold survivors’ souls as sacred trust

113:3.4And herein is re­vealed the rea­son why the se­raphic guard­ian even­tu­ally be­comes the per­sonal cus­to­dian of the mind pat­terns, mem­ory for­mu­las, and soul re­al­i­ties of the mor­tal sur­vivor dur­ing that in­ter­val be­tween phys­i­cal death and mor­ontia res­ur­rec­tion. None but the min­is­ter­ing chil­dren of the In­fi­nite Spirit could thus func­tion in be­half of the hu­man crea­ture dur­ing this phase of tran­si­tion from one level of the uni­verse to an­other and higher level. Even when you en­gage in your ter­mi­nal tran­si­tion slum­ber, when you pass from time to eter­nity, a high super­na­phim like­wise shares the tran­sit with you as the cus­to­dian of crea­ture iden­tity and the surety of per­sonal in­tegrity.

113:6.1Hav­ing told you some­thing of the min­istry of ser­a­phim dur­ing nat­u­ral life, I will en­deavor to in­form you about the con­duct of the guard­i­ans of des­tiny at the time of the mor­tal dis­so­lu­tion of their hu­man as­so­ciates. Upon your death, your rec­ords, iden­tity spec­i­fi­ca­tions, and the mor­ontia en­tity of the hu­man soul—con­jointly evolved by the min­istry of mor­tal mind and the di­vine Ad­juster—are faith­fully con­served by the des­tiny guard­ian to­gether with all other val­ues re­lated to your fu­ture ex­is­tence, ev­ery­thing that con­sti­tutes you, the real you, ex­cept the iden­tity of con­tin­u­ing ex­is­tence rep­re­sented by the de­part­ing Ad­juster and the ac­tu­al­ity of per­son­al­ity.

113:6.2The in­stant the pi­lot light in the hu­man mind dis­ap­pears, the spirit lu­mi­nos­ity which ser­a­phim as­so­ciate with the pres­ence of the Ad­juster, the at­tend­ing an­gel re­ports in per­son to the com­mand­ing an­gels, suc­ces­sively, of the group, com­pany, bat­tal­ion, unit, le­gion, and host; and af­ter be­ing duly reg­is­tered for the fi­nal ad­ven­ture of time and space, such an an­gel re­ceives cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the plan­e­tary chief of ser­a­phim for re­port­ing to the Evening Star (or other lieu­tenant of Ga­briel) in com­mand of the se­raphic army of this can­di­date for uni­verse as­cen­sion. And upon be­ing granted per­mis­sion from the com­man­der of this high­est or­ga­ni­za­tional unit, such a guard­ian of des­tiny pro­ceeds to the first man­sion world and there awaits the con­sciou­siz­ing of her for­mer ward in the flesh.

113:6.3In case the hu­man soul fails of sur­vival af­ter hav­ing re­ceived the as­sign­ment of a per­sonal an­gel, the at­tend­ing ser­a­phim must pro­ceed to the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verse, there to wit­ness to the com­plete rec­ords of her com­ple­ment as pre­vi­ously re­ported. Next she goes be­fore the tri­bu­nals of the arch­an­gels, to be ab­solved from blame in the mat­ter of the sur­vival fail­ure of her sub­ject; and then she goes back to the worlds, again to be as­signed to an­other mor­tal of as­cend­ing po­ten­tial­ity or to some other di­vi­sion of se­raphic min­istry.

113:6.4But an­gels min­is­ter to evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures in many ways aside from the ser­vices of per­sonal and group guardian­ship. Per­sonal guard­i­ans whose sub­jects do not go im­me­di­ately to the man­sion worlds do not tarry there in idle­ness await­ing the dis­pen­sa­tional roll calls of judg­ment; they are re­as­signed to nu­mer­ous min­is­ter­ing mis­sions through­out the uni­verse.

113:6.5The guard­ian ser­a­phim is the cus­to­dial trus­tee of the sur­vival val­ues of mor­tal man’s slum­ber­ing soul as the ab­sent Ad­juster is the iden­tity of such an im­mor­tal uni­verse be­ing. When these two col­lab­o­rate in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of man­so­nia in con­junc­tion with the newly fab­ri­cated mor­ontia form, there oc­curs the re­assem­bly of the con­stituent fac­tors of the per­son­al­ity of the mor­tal as­cender.

113:6.6The Ad­juster will iden­tify you; the guard­ian ser­a­phim will reper­son­al­ize you and then re-pres­ent you to the faith­ful Mon­i­tor of your earth days.

• group guardians reassemble their subjects in resurrection halls

113:6.7And even so, when a plan­e­tary age ends, when those in the lower cir­cles of mor­tal achieve­ment are for­gath­ered, it is their group guard­i­ans who re­assem­ble them in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of the man­sion spheres, even as your rec­ord tells: “And he shall send his an­gels with a great voice and shall gather to­gether his elect from one end of the realm to an­other.”

• respond to roll call of justice for nonsurvivors

113:6.8The tech­nique of jus­tice de­mands that per­sonal or group guard­i­ans shall re­spond to the dis­pen­sa­tional roll call in be­half of all non­sur­viv­ing per­son­al­i­ties. The Ad­justers of such non­sur­vivors do not re­turn, and when the rolls are called, the ser­a­phim re­spond, but the Ad­justers make no an­swer. This con­sti­tutes the “res­ur­rec­tion of the un­just,” in re­al­ity the for­mal rec­og­ni­tion of the ces­sa­tion of crea­ture ex­is­tence. This roll call of jus­tice al­ways im­me­di­ately fol­lows the roll call of mercy, the res­ur­rec­tion of the sleep­ing sur­vivors. But these are mat­ters which are of con­cern to none but the su­preme and all-know­ing Judges of sur­vival val­ues. Such prob­lems of ad­ju­di­ca­tion do not re­ally con­cern us.

113:6.9Group guard­i­ans may serve on a planet age af­ter age and even­tu­ally be­come cus­to­di­ans of the slum­ber­ing souls of thou­sands upon thou­sands of sleep­ing sur­vivors. They can so serve on many dif­fer­ent worlds in a given sys­tem since the res­ur­rec­tion re­sponse oc­curs on the man­sion worlds.

113:6.10All per­sonal and group guard­i­ans in the sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia who went astray in the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion, not­with­stand­ing that many sin­cerely re­pented of their folly, are to be de­tained on Je­ru­sem un­til the fi­nal ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the re­bel­lion. Al­ready have the Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors ar­bi­trar­ily taken from these dis­obe­di­ent and un­faith­ful guard­i­ans all as­pects of their soul trusts and lodged these mor­ontia re­al­i­ties for safe­keep­ing in the cus­tody of vol­un­teer se­con­a­phim.

• survivors first see g.a. on mansion worlds

113:7.1It is in­deed an epoch in the ca­reer of an as­cend­ing mor­tal, this first awak­en­ing on the shores of the man­sion world; there, for the first time, ac­tu­ally to see your long-loved and ever-pres­ent an­gelic com­pan­ions of earth days; there also to be­come truly con­scious of the iden­tity and pres­ence of the di­vine Mon­i­tor who so long in­dwelt your mind on earth. Such an ex­pe­ri­ence con­sti­tutes a glo­ri­ous awak­en­ing, a real res­ur­rec­tion.

• group guardians reassemble their subjects in resurrection halls

189:3.2The cir­cuit of the arch­an­gels then op­er­ated for the first time from Uran­tia. Ga­briel and the arch­an­gel hosts moved to the place of the spir­i­tual po­lar­ity of the planet; and when Ga­briel gave the sig­nal, there flashed to the first of the sys­tem man­sion worlds the voice of Ga­briel, say­ing: “By the man­date of Mi­chael, let the dead of a Uran­tia dis­pen­sa­tion rise!” Then all the sur­vivors of the hu­man races of Uran­tia who had fallen asleep since the days of Adam, and who had not al­ready gone on to judg­ment, ap­peared in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of man­so­nia in readi­ness for mor­ontia in­vesti­ture. And in an in­stant of time the ser­a­phim and their as­so­ciates made ready to de­part for the man­sion worlds. Or­di­nar­ily these se­raphic guard­i­ans, one­time as­signed to the group cus­tody of these sur­viv­ing mor­tals, would have been pres­ent at the mo­ment of their awak­ing in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of man­so­nia, but they were on this world it­self at this time be­cause of the ne­ces­sity of Ga­briel’s pres­ence here in con­nec­tion with the mor­ontia res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus.

113:2.3All an­gelic as­sign­ments are made from a group of vol­un­teer­ing ser­a­phim, and these ap­point­ments are al­ways in ac­cor­dance with hu­man needs and with re­gard to the sta­tus of the an­gelic pair—in the light of se­raphic ex­pe­ri­ence, skill, and wis­dom. Only ser­a­phim of long ser­vice, the more ex­pe­ri­enced and tested types, are as­signed as des­tiny guards. Many guard­i­ans have gained much valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence on those worlds which are of the non-Ad­juster fu­sion se­ries. Like the Ad­justers, the ser­a­phim at­tend these be­ings for a sin­gle life­time and then are lib­er­ated for new as­sign­ment. Many guard­i­ans on Uran­tia have had this pre­vi­ous prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence on other worlds.

113:2.7In the min­istry of per­sonal guardian­ship, the as­sign­ment of an­gels as des­tiny guard­i­ans, ser­a­phim al­ways vol­un­teer their ser­vices. In the city of this vis­i­ta­tion a cer­tain mor­tal was re­cently ad­mit­ted to the re­serve corps of des­tiny, and since all such hu­mans are per­son­ally at­tended by guard­ian an­gels, more than one hun­dred qual­i­fied ser­a­phim sought the as­sign­ment. The plan­e­tary di­rec­tor se­lected twelve of the more ex­pe­ri­enced in­di­vid­u­als and sub­se­quently ap­pointed the ser­a­phim whom they se­lected as best adapted to guide this hu­man be­ing through his life jour­ney. That is, they se­lected a cer­tain pair of equally qual­i­fied ser­a­phim; one of this se­raphic pair will al­ways be on duty.

40:5.9Mor­tals of se­ries one in­habit the worlds of space dur­ing the ear­lier epochs of the evo­lu­tion of man­kind and em­brace the most prim­i­tive types of hu­man minds. On many worlds like pre-Adamic Uran­tia great num­bers of the higher and more ad­vanced types of prim­i­tive men ac­quire sur­vival ca­pac­ity but fail to at­tain Ad­juster fu­sion. For ages upon ages, be­fore man’s as­cent to the level of higher spir­i­tual vo­li­tion, the Ad­justers oc­cupy the minds of these strug­gling crea­tures dur­ing their short lives in the flesh, and the mo­ment such will crea­tures are in­dwelt by Ad­justers, the group guard­ian an­gels be­gin to func­tion. While these mor­tals of the first se­ries do not have per­sonal guard­i­ans, they do have group cus­to­di­ans.

113:2.1Ser­a­phim are not known as guard­i­ans of des­tiny un­til such time as they are as­signed to the as­so­ci­a­tion of a hu­man soul who has re­al­ized one or more of three achieve­ments: has made a su­preme de­ci­sion to be­come God­like, has en­tered the third cir­cle, or has been mus­tered into one of the re­serve corps of des­tiny.

63:6.9Al­though both An­don and Fonta had re­ceived Thought Ad­justers, as had many of their de­scen­dants, it was not un­til the days of On­a­gar that the Ad­justers and guard­ian ser­a­phim came in great num­bers to Uran­tia. This was, in­deed, the golden age of prim­i­tive man.

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.

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.

113:2.4When hu­man be­ings fail to sur­vive, their per­sonal or group guard­i­ans may re­peat­edly serve in sim­i­lar ca­pac­i­ties on the same planet. The ser­a­phim de­velop a sen­ti­men­tal re­gard for in­di­vid­ual worlds and en­ter­tain a spe­cial af­fec­tion for cer­tain races and types of mor­tal crea­tures with whom they have been so closely and in­ti­mately as­so­ci­ated.

77:8.4Mid­way­ers are not men, nei­ther are they an­gels, but sec­ondary mid­way­ers are, in na­ture, nearer man than an­gel; they are, in a way, of your races and are, there­fore, very un­der­stand­ing and sym­pa­thetic in their con­tact with hu­man be­ings; they are in­valu­able to the ser­a­phim in their work for and with the var­i­ous races of man­kind, and both or­ders are in­dis­pens­able to the ser­a­phim who serve as per­sonal guard­i­ans to mor­tals.

165:3.4“Are not five spar­rows sold for two pen­nies? And yet, when these birds flit about in quest of their sus­te­nance, not one of them ex­ists with­out the knowl­edge of the Fa­ther, the source of all life. To the se­raphic guard­i­ans the very hairs of your head are num­bered. And if all of this is true, why should you live in fear of the many tri­fles which come up in your daily lives? I say to you: Fear not; you are of much more value than many spar­rows.

165:3.5“All of you who have had the cour­age to con­fess faith in my gospel be­fore men I will pres­ently ac­knowl­edge be­fore the an­gels of heaven; but he who shall know­ingly deny the truth of my teach­ings be­fore men shall be de­nied by his guard­ian of des­tiny even be­fore the an­gels of heaven.

113:7.2On the mor­ontia spheres the at­tend­ing ser­a­phim (there are two of them) are your open com­pan­ions. These an­gels not only con­sort with you as you pro­gress through the ca­reer of the tran­si­tion worlds, in ev­ery way pos­si­ble as­sist­ing you in the ac­quire­ment of mor­ontia and spirit sta­tus, but they also avail them­selves of the op­por­tu­nity to ad­vance by study in the ex­ten­sion schools for evo­lu­tion­ary ser­a­phim main­tained on the man­sion worlds.

• constantly manipulate mortal environment to augment cosmic insight

113:3.5On the spir­i­tual level, ser­a­phim make per­sonal many oth­er­wise im­per­sonal and preper­sonal min­istries of the uni­verse; they are co-or­di­na­tors. On the in­tel­lec­tual level they are the cor­re­la­tors of mind and mor­ontia; they are in­ter­preters. And on the phys­i­cal level they ma­nip­u­late ter­res­trial en­vi­ron­ment through their li­ai­son with the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers and through the co-op­er­a­tive min­istry of the mid­way crea­tures.

• constantly manipulate mortal environment to augment cosmic insight

113:4.4The im­pulse of wor­ship largely orig­i­nates in the spirit prompt­ings of the higher mind ad­ju­tants, re­in­forced by the lead­ings of the Ad­juster. But the urge to pray so of­ten ex­pe­ri­enced by God-con­scious mor­tals very of­ten arises as the re­sult of se­raphic in­flu­ence. The guard­ing ser­a­phim is con­stantly ma­nip­u­lat­ing the mor­tal en­vi­ron­ment for the pur­pose of aug­ment­ing the cos­mic in­sight of the hu­man as­cender to the end that such a sur­vival can­di­date may ac­quire en­hanced re­al­iza­tion of the pres­ence of the in­dwelling Ad­juster and thus be en­abled to yield in­creased co-op­er­a­tion with the spir­i­tual mis­sion of the di­vine pres­ence.

• most active when Adjusters are least active
• no communication with subjects’ indwelling Adjusters

113:4.5While there is ap­par­ently no com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the in­dwelling Ad­justers and the en­com­pass­ing ser­a­phim, they al­ways seem to work in per­fect har­mony and ex­qui­site ac­cord. The guard­i­ans are most ac­tive at those times when the Ad­justers are least ac­tive, but their min­istry is in some man­ner strangely cor­re­lated. Such su­perb co-op­er­a­tion could hardly be ei­ther ac­ci­den­tal or in­ci­den­tal.

• do not invade sanctity of human mind or manipulate human will
• no communication with subjects’ indwelling Adjusters

113:5.1An­gels do not in­vade the sanc­tity of the hu­man mind; they do not ma­nip­u­late the will of mor­tals; nei­ther do they di­rectly con­tact with the in­dwelling Ad­justers. The guard­ian of des­tiny in­flu­ences you in ev­ery pos­si­ble man­ner con­sis­tent with the dig­nity of your per­son­al­ity; un­der no cir­cum­stances do these an­gels in­ter­fere with the free ac­tion of the hu­man will. Nei­ther an­gels nor any other or­der of uni­verse per­son­al­ity have power or au­thor­ity to cur­tail or abridge the pre­rog­a­tives of hu­man choos­ing.

• help mortals independent of prayers, appeals

113:5.3The ser­a­phim act in your be­half quite in­de­pen­dent of your di­rect ap­peals; they are ex­e­cut­ing the man­dates of their su­pe­ri­ors, and thus they func­tion re­gard­less of your pass­ing whims or chang­ing moods. This does not im­ply that you may not make their tasks ei­ther eas­ier or more dif­fi­cult, but rather that an­gels are not di­rectly con­cerned with your ap­peals or with your prayers.

• act to make best use of course mortals choose
• intrude only in emergencies, on direct orders

113:5.4In the life of the flesh the in­tel­li­gence of an­gels is not di­rectly avail­able to mor­tal men. They are not over­lords or di­rec­tors; they are sim­ply guard­i­ans. The ser­a­phim guard you; they do not seek di­rectly to in­flu­ence you; you must chart your own course, but these an­gels then act to make the best pos­si­ble use of the course you have cho­sen. They do not (or­di­nar­ily) ar­bi­trar­ily in­ter­vene in the rou­tine af­fairs of hu­man life. But when they re­ceive in­struc­tions from their su­pe­ri­ors to per­form some un­usual ex­ploit, you may rest as­sured that these guard­i­ans will find some means of car­ry­ing out these man­dates. They do not, there­fore, in­trude into the pic­ture of hu­man drama ex­cept in emer­gen­cies and then usu­ally on the di­rect or­ders of their su­pe­ri­ors. They are the be­ings who are go­ing to fol­low you for many an age, and they are thus re­ceiv­ing an in­tro­duc­tion to their fu­ture work and per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion.

• physical contacts with mankind are very unusual

113:5.5Ser­a­phim are able to func­tion as ma­te­rial min­is­ters to hu­man be­ings un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances, but their ac­tion in this ca­pac­ity is very rare. They are able, with the as­sis­tance of the mid­way crea­tures and the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, to func­tion in a wide range of ac­tiv­i­ties in be­half of hu­man be­ings, even to make ac­tual con­tact with man­kind, but such oc­cur­rences are very un­usual. In most in­stances the cir­cum­stances of the ma­te­rial realm pro­ceed un­al­tered by se­raphic ac­tion, al­though oc­ca­sions have arisen, in­volv­ing jeop­ardy to vi­tal links in the chain of hu­man evo­lu­tion, in which se­raphic guard­i­ans have acted, and prop­erly, on their own ini­tia­tive.