knowledge

• finite k. only relatively complete and locally accurate

2:7.1All fi­nite knowl­edge and crea­ture un­der­stand­ing are rel­a­tive. In­for­ma­tion and in­tel­li­gence, gleaned from even high sources, is only rel­a­tively com­plete, lo­cally ac­cu­rate, and per­son­ally true.

• a little k. is dangerous, disconcerting

2:7.4The false sci­ence of ma­te­ri­al­ism would sen­tence mor­tal man to be­come an out­cast in the uni­verse. Such par­tial knowl­edge is po­ten­tially evil; it is knowl­edge com­posed of both good and evil. Truth is beau­ti­ful be­cause it is both re­plete and sym­met­ri­cal. When man searches for truth, he pur­sues the di­vinely real.

• dependent on research except on Paradise, where k. is inherent

24:2.2The Cen­sus Di­rec­tors are a spe­cial and com­pleted cre­ation of the In­fi­nite Spirit, and they ex­ist in num­bers un­known to us. They are so cre­ated as to be able to main­tain per­fect syn­chrony with the re­flec­tiv­ity tech­nique of the super­uni­verses, while at the same time they are per­son­ally sen­si­tive and re­spon­sive to in­tel­li­gent will. These di­rec­tors, by a not-fully-un­der­stood tech­nique, are made im­me­di­ately aware of the birth of will in any part of the grand uni­verse. They are, there­fore, al­ways com­pe­tent to give us the num­ber, na­ture, and where­abouts of all will crea­tures in any part of the cen­tral cre­ation and the seven super­uni­verses. But they do not func­tion on Par­a­dise; there is no need for them there. On Par­a­dise knowl­edge is in­her­ent; the De­i­ties know all things.

• possessed only by sharing

25:4.12Those mor­tals and mid­way­ers who serve tran­siently with the ad­vis­ers are cho­sen for such work be­cause of their ex­pert­ness in the con­cept of uni­ver­sal law and su­preme jus­tice. As you jour­ney to­ward your Par­a­dise goal, con­stantly ac­quir­ing added knowl­edge and en­hanced skill, you are con­tin­u­ously af­forded the op­por­tu­nity to give out to oth­ers the wis­dom and ex­pe­ri­ence you have al­ready ac­cu­mu­lated; all the way in to Ha­vona you en­act the role of a pupil-teacher. You will work your way through the as­cend­ing lev­els of this vast ex­pe­ri­en­tial uni­ver­sity by im­part­ing to those just be­low you the new-found knowl­edge of your ad­vanc­ing ca­reer. In the uni­ver­sal regime you are not reck­oned as hav­ing pos­sessed your­self of knowl­edge and truth un­til you have demon­strated your abil­ity and your will­ing­ness to im­part this knowl­edge and truth to oth­ers.

27:5.1The super­aphic cus­to­di­ans of knowl­edge are the higher “liv­ing epis­tles” known and read by all who dwell on Par­a­dise. They are the di­vine rec­ords of truth, the liv­ing books of real knowl­edge. You have heard about rec­ords in the “book of life.” The cus­to­di­ans of knowl­edge are just such liv­ing books, rec­ords of per­fec­tion im­printed upon the eter­nal tablets of di­vine life and su­preme surety. They are in re­al­ity liv­ing, au­to­matic li­braries. The facts of the uni­verses are in­her­ent in these pri­mary super­na­phim, ac­tu­ally re­corded in these an­gels; and it is also in­her­ently im­pos­si­ble for an un­truth to gain lodg­ment in the minds of these per­fect and re­plete repos­i­to­ries of the truth of eter­nity and the in­tel­li­gence of time.

27:5.2These cus­to­di­ans con­duct in­for­mal courses of in­struc­tion for the res­i­dents of the eter­nal Isle, but their chief func­tion is that of ref­er­ence and ver­i­fi­ca­tion. Any so­journer on Par­a­dise may at will have by his side the liv­ing re­pos­i­tory of the par­tic­u­lar fact or truth he may wish to know. At the north­ern ex­trem­ity of the Isle there are avail­able the liv­ing find­ers of knowl­edge, who will des­ig­nate the di­rec­tor of the group hold­ing the in­for­ma­tion sought, and forth­with will ap­pear the bril­liant be­ings who are the very thing you wish to know. No longer must you seek en­light­en­ment from en­grossed pages; you now com­mune with liv­ing in­tel­li­gence face to face. Su­preme knowl­edge you thus ob­tain from the liv­ing be­ings who are its fi­nal cus­to­di­ans.

27:5.3When you lo­cate that super­na­phim who is ex­actly what you de­sire to ver­ify, you will find avail­able all the known facts of all uni­verses, for these cus­to­di­ans of knowl­edge are the fi­nal and liv­ing sum­maries of the vast net­work of the record­ing an­gels, rang­ing from the ser­a­phim and se­con­a­phim of the lo­cal and super­uni­verses to the chief re­cord­ers of the ter­tiary super­na­phim in Ha­vona. And this liv­ing ac­cu­mu­la­tion of knowl­edge is dis­tinct from the for­mal rec­ords of Par­a­dise, the cu­mu­la­tive sum­mary of uni­ver­sal his­tory.

27:5.4The wis­dom of truth takes ori­gin in the di­vin­ity of the cen­tral uni­verse, but knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­en­tial knowl­edge, largely has its be­gin­nings in the do­mains of time and space—there­fore the ne­ces­sity for the main­te­nance of the far-flung super­uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tions of the record­ing ser­a­phim and super­na­phim spon­sored by the Ce­les­tial Re­cord­ers.

27:5.5These pri­mary super­na­phim who are in­her­ently in pos­ses­sion of uni­verse knowl­edge are also re­spon­si­ble for its or­ga­ni­za­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­tion. In con­sti­tut­ing them­selves the liv­ing ref­er­ence li­brary of the uni­verse of uni­verses, they have clas­si­fied knowl­edge into seven grand or­ders, each hav­ing about one mil­lion sub­di­vi­sions. The fa­cil­ity with which the res­i­dents of Par­a­dise can con­sult this vast store of knowl­edge is solely due to the vol­un­tary and wise ef­forts of the cus­to­di­ans of knowl­edge. The cus­to­di­ans are also the ex­alted teach­ers of the cen­tral uni­verse, freely giv­ing out their liv­ing trea­sures to all be­ings on any of the Ha­vona cir­cuits, and they are ex­ten­sively, though in­di­rectly, uti­lized by the courts of the An­cients of Days. But this liv­ing li­brary, which is avail­able to the cen­tral and super­uni­verses, is not ac­ces­si­ble to the lo­cal cre­ations. Only by in­di­rec­tion and re­flec­tively are the ben­e­fits of Par­a­dise knowl­edge se­cured in the lo­cal uni­verses.

• goal of k. is to attain truth

27:6.2The mas­ter philoso­phers of Par­a­dise de­light to lead the minds of its in­hab­i­tants, both na­tive and as­cen­dant, in the ex­hil­a­rat­ing pur­suit of at­tempt­ing to solve uni­verse prob­lems. These super­aphic mas­ters of phi­los­o­phy are the “wise men of heaven,” the be­ings of wis­dom who make use of the truth of knowl­edge and the facts of ex­pe­ri­ence in their ef­forts to mas­ter the un­known. With them knowl­edge at­tains to truth and ex­pe­ri­ence as­cends to wis­dom. On Par­a­dise the as­cen­dant per­son­al­i­ties of space ex­pe­ri­ence the heights of be­ing: They have knowl­edge; they know the truth; they may phi­los­o­phize—think the truth; they may even seek to en­com­pass the con­cepts of the Ul­ti­mate and at­tempt to grasp the tech­niques of the Ab­so­lutes.

• dependent on research except on Paradise, where k. is inherent

30:3.5Sim­i­lar as­tron­o­mer colonies are to be found on the sec­tor head­quar­ters worlds of the super­uni­verse as well as on the ar­chi­tec­tural cap­i­tals of the lo­cal uni­verses and their ad­min­is­tra­tive sub­di­vi­sions. Ex­cept on Par­a­dise, knowl­edge is not in­her­ent; un­der­stand­ing of the phys­i­cal uni­verse is largely de­pen­dent on ob­ser­va­tion and re­search.

• eternal quest; way always open to acquire more

44:3.65. The ed­u­ca­tion builders—those who build the head­quar­ters of mor­ontia train­ing and ad­vanced spirit learn­ing. Al­ways is the way open to ac­quire more knowl­edge, to gain ad­di­tional in­for­ma­tion re­spect­ing one’s pres­ent and fu­ture work as well as uni­ver­sal cul­tural knowl­edge, in­for­ma­tion de­signed to make as­cend­ing mor­tals more in­tel­li­gent and ef­fec­tive cit­i­zens of the mor­ontia and spirit worlds.

• possessed only by sharing

48:7.2826. Knowl­edge is pos­sessed only by shar­ing; it is safe­guarded by wis­dom and so­cial­ized by love.

• effort to execute k. results in wisdom

50:5.74. The quest for knowl­edge and wis­dom. Food, se­cu­rity, plea­sure, and leisure pro­vide the foun­da­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of cul­ture and the spread of knowl­edge. The ef­fort to ex­e­cute knowl­edge re­sults in wis­dom, and when a cul­ture has learned how to profit and im­prove by ex­pe­ri­ence, civ­i­liza­tion has re­ally ar­rived. Food, se­cu­rity, and ma­te­rial com­fort still dom­i­nate so­ci­ety, but many for­ward-look­ing in­di­vid­u­als are hun­ger­ing for knowl­edge and thirst­ing for wis­dom. Ev­ery child is pro­vided an op­por­tu­nity to learn by do­ing; ed­u­ca­tion is the watch­word of these ages.

• physical sciences reach height of development in post-Magisterial era

52:4.8Dur­ing the clos­ing ages of this dis­pen­sa­tion, so­ci­ety be­gins to re­turn to more sim­pli­fied forms of liv­ing. The com­plex na­ture of an ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion is run­ning its course, and mor­tals are learn­ing to live more nat­u­rally and ef­fec­tively. And this trend in­creases with each suc­ceed­ing epoch. This is the age of the flow­er­ing of art, mu­sic, and higher learn­ing. The phys­i­cal sci­ences have al­ready reached their height of de­vel­op­ment. The ter­mi­na­tion of this age, on an ideal world, wit­nesses the full­ness of a great re­li­gious awak­en­ing, a world-wide spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment. And this ex­ten­sive arousal of the spir­i­tual na­tures of the races is the sig­nal for the ar­rival of the be­stowal Son and for the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the fifth mor­tal epoch.

• physical sciences reach height of development in post-Magisterial era

55:4.8Act­ing as in­ter­preters for the se­raphic guard­i­ans and the fi­nal­i­ters are the ex­alted and lib­er­ated mid­way crea­tures. One of the last acts of the Trin­ity Teacher Sons on their ter­mi­nal mis­sion is to lib­er­ate the mid­way­ers of the realm and to pro­mote (or re­store) them to ad­vanced plan­e­tary sta­tus, as­sign­ing them to re­spon­si­ble places in the new ad­min­is­tra­tion of the set­tled sphere. Such changes have al­ready been made in the range of hu­man vi­sion as en­able mor­tals to rec­og­nize these here­to­fore in­vis­i­ble cousins of the early Adamic regime. This is made pos­si­ble by the fi­nal dis­cov­er­ies of phys­i­cal sci­ence in li­ai­son with the en­larged plan­e­tary func­tions of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers.

• is power

81:6.9Knowl­edge is power. In­ven­tion al­ways pre­cedes the ac­cel­er­a­tion of cul­tural de­vel­op­ment on a world-wide scale. Sci­ence and in­ven­tion ben­e­fited most of all from the print­ing press, and the in­ter­ac­tion of all these cul­tural and in­ven­tive ac­tiv­i­ties has enor­mously ac­cel­er­ated the rate of cul­tural ad­vance­ment.

• cumulative, because k. enables man to stand on shoulders of those preceding him

81:6.238. Char­ac­ter of torch­bear­ers. So­cial in­her­i­tance en­ables man to stand on the shoul­ders of all who have pre­ceded him, and who have con­tributed aught to the sum of cul­ture and knowl­edge. In this work of pass­ing on the cul­tural torch to the next gen­er­a­tion, the home will ever be the ba­sic in­sti­tu­tion. The play and so­cial life comes next, with the school last but equally in­dis­pens­able in a com­plex and highly or­ga­nized so­ci­ety.

• dangerous to know much in days of barbarism

88:6.6But a world so filled with charms did much to de­stroy all per­sonal am­bi­tion and ini­tia­tive. The fruits of ex­tra la­bor or of dili­gence were looked upon as mag­i­cal. If a man had more grain in his field than his neigh­bor, he might be haled be­fore the chief and charged with en­tic­ing this ex­tra grain from the in­do­lent neigh­bor’s field. In­deed, in the days of bar­barism it was dan­ger­ous to know very much; there was al­ways the chance of be­ing ex­e­cuted as a black artist.

• factual k. exerts little influence unless emotionally activated

99:4.5Af­ter all, it is what one be­lieves rather than what one knows that de­ter­mines con­duct and dom­i­nates per­sonal per­for­mances. Purely fac­tual knowl­edge ex­erts very lit­tle in­flu­ence upon the av­er­age man un­less it be­comes emo­tion­ally ac­ti­vated. But the ac­ti­va­tion of re­li­gion is super­emo­tional, uni­fy­ing the en­tire hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence on tran­scen­dent lev­els through con­tact with, and re­lease of, spir­i­tual en­er­gies in the mor­tal life.

• evolutionary k. is accumulation of protoplasmic memory material

101:6.4The evo­lu­tion­ary type of knowl­edge is but the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of pro­to­plas­mic mem­ory ma­te­rial; this is the most prim­i­tive form of crea­ture con­scious­ness. Wis­dom em­braces the ideas for­mu­lated from pro­to­plas­mic mem­ory in pro­cess of as­so­ci­a­tion and re­com­bi­na­tion, and such phe­nom­ena dif­fer­en­ti­ate hu­man mind from mere an­i­mal mind. An­i­mals have knowl­edge, but only man pos­sesses wis­dom ca­pac­ity. Truth is made ac­ces­si­ble to the wis­dom-en­dowed in­di­vid­ual by the be­stowal on such a mind of the spir­its of the Fa­ther and the Sons, the Thought Ad­juster and the Spirit of Truth.

• eternal quest; way always open to acquire more
• no absolute certainty regarding

102:2.4Time is an in­vari­able el­e­ment in the at­tain­ment of knowl­edge; re­li­gion makes its en­dow­ments im­me­di­ately avail­able, al­beit there is the im­por­tant fac­tor of growth in grace, def­i­nite ad­vance­ment in all phases of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. Knowl­edge is an eter­nal quest; al­ways are you learn­ing, but never are you able to ar­rive at the full knowl­edge of ab­so­lute truth. In knowl­edge alone there can never be ab­so­lute cer­tainty, only in­creas­ing prob­a­bil­ity of ap­prox­i­ma­tion; but the re­li­gious soul of spir­i­tual il­lu­mi­na­tion knows, and knows now. And yet this pro­found and pos­i­tive cer­ti­tude does not lead such a sound-minded re­li­gion­ist to take any less in­ter­est in the ups and downs of the prog­ress of hu­man wis­dom, which is bound up on its ma­te­rial end with the de­vel­op­ments of slow-mov­ing sci­ence.

• not real until facts are unraveled and correlated into meaning

102:2.5Even the dis­cov­er­ies of sci­ence are not truly real in the con­scious­ness of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence un­til they are un­rav­eled and cor­re­lated, un­til their rel­e­vant facts ac­tu­ally be­come mean­ing through en­cir­cuit­ment in the thought streams of mind. Mor­tal man views even his phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment from the mind level, from the per­spec­tive of its psy­cho­log­i­cal reg­istry. It is not, there­fore, strange that man should place a highly uni­fied in­ter­pre­ta­tion upon the uni­verse and then seek to iden­tify this en­ergy unity of his sci­ence with the spirit unity of his re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. Mind is unity; mor­tal con­scious­ness lives on the mind level and per­ceives the uni­ver­sal re­al­i­ties through the eyes of the mind en­dow­ment. The mind per­spec­tive will not yield the ex­is­ten­tial unity of the source of re­al­ity, the First Source and Cen­ter, but it can and some­time will por­tray to man the ex­pe­ri­en­tial syn­the­sis of en­ergy, mind, and spirit in and as the Su­preme Be­ing. But mind can never suc­ceed in this uni­fi­ca­tion of the di­ver­sity of re­al­ity un­less such mind is firmly aware of ma­te­rial things, in­tel­lec­tual mean­ings, and spir­i­tual val­ues; only in the har­mony of the tri­unity of func­tional re­al­ity is there unity, and only in unity is there the per­son­al­ity sat­is­fac­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of cos­mic con­stancy and con­sis­tency.

• recognition is fitting sensory impressions into memory patterns

111:4.1Rec­og­ni­tion is the in­tel­lec­tual pro­cess of fit­ting the sen­sory im­pres­sions re­ceived from the ex­ter­nal world into the mem­ory pat­terns of the in­di­vid­ual. Un­der­stand­ing con­notes that these rec­og­nized sen­sory im­pres­sions and their as­so­ci­ated mem­ory pat­terns have be­come in­te­grated or or­ga­nized into a dy­namic net­work of prin­ci­ples.

• permits greater appreciation of meanings and values

111:6.7The ex­pan­sion of ma­te­rial knowl­edge per­mits a greater in­tel­lec­tual ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the mean­ings of ideas and the val­ues of ide­als. A hu­man be­ing can find truth in his in­ner ex­pe­ri­ence, but he needs a clear knowl­edge of facts to ap­ply his per­sonal dis­cov­ery of truth to the ruth­lessly prac­ti­cal de­mands of ev­ery­day life.

• Jesus accumulated k., then classified and correlated

127:6.14As a child he ac­cu­mu­lated a vast body of knowl­edge; as a youth he sorted, clas­si­fied, and cor­re­lated this in­for­ma­tion; and now as a man of the realm he be­gins to or­ga­nize these men­tal pos­ses­sions prepara­tory to uti­liza­tion in his sub­se­quent teach­ing, min­istry, and ser­vice in be­half of his fel­low mor­tals on this world and on all other spheres of habi­ta­tion through­out the en­tire uni­verse of Neb­a­don.

• sphere of fact-discerning mind

130:4.10Knowl­edge is the sphere of the ma­te­rial or fact-dis­cern­ing mind. Truth is the do­main of the spir­i­tu­ally en­dowed in­tel­lect that is con­scious of know­ing God. Knowl­edge is demon­stra­ble; truth is ex­pe­ri­enced. Knowl­edge is a pos­ses­sion of the mind; truth an ex­pe­ri­ence of the soul, the pro­gress­ing self. Knowl­edge is a func­tion of the non­spir­i­tual level; truth is a phase of the mind-spirit level of the uni­verses. The eye of the ma­te­rial mind per­ceives a world of fac­tual knowl­edge; the eye of the spir­i­tu­al­ized in­tel­lect dis­cerns a world of true val­ues. These two views, syn­chro­nized and har­mo­nized, re­veal the world of re­al­ity, wherein wis­dom in­ter­prets the phe­nom­ena of the uni­verse in terms of pro­gres­sive per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence.

• a little k. is dangerous, disconcerting

131:8.4“The wise man uni­ver­sal­izes his heart. A lit­tle knowl­edge is a dan­ger­ous thing. Those who as­pire to great­ness must learn to hum­ble them­selves. In cre­ation the Su­preme be­came the world’s mother. To know one’s mother is to rec­og­nize one’s son­ship. He is a wise man who re­gards all parts from the point of view of the whole. Re­late your­self to ev­ery man as if you were in his place. Rec­om­pense in­jury with kind­ness. If you love peo­ple, they will draw near you—you will have no dif­fi­culty in win­ning them.

• cumulative, because k. can be communicated to succeeding generations

160:2.3It is this abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate and share mean­ings that con­sti­tutes hu­man cul­ture and en­ables man, through so­cial as­so­ci­a­tions, to build civ­i­liza­tions. Knowl­edge and wis­dom be­come cu­mu­la­tive be­cause of man’s abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate these pos­ses­sions to suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions. And thereby arise the cul­tural ac­tiv­i­ties of the race: art, sci­ence, re­li­gion, and phi­los­o­phy.

• a little k. is dangerous, disconcerting

195:6.3The pur­suit of mere knowl­edge, with­out the at­ten­dant in­ter­pre­ta­tion of wis­dom and the spir­i­tual in­sight of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, even­tu­ally leads to pes­simism and hu­man de­spair. A lit­tle knowl­edge is truly dis­con­cert­ing.

• greatest k. is to know religious life of Jesus

196:1.3To “fol­low Je­sus” means to per­son­ally share his re­li­gious faith and to en­ter into the spirit of the Mas­ter’s life of un­selfish ser­vice for man. One of the most im­por­tant things in hu­man liv­ing is to find out what Je­sus be­lieved, to dis­cover his ide­als, and to strive for the achieve­ment of his ex­alted life pur­pose. Of all hu­man knowl­edge, that which is of great­est value is to know the re­li­gious life of Je­sus and how he lived it.