oaths

74:1.4Adam and Eve had re­mained loyal to Mi­chael dur­ing the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion; nev­er­the­less, the pair were called be­fore the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign and his en­tire cab­i­net for ex­am­i­na­tion and in­struc­tion. The de­tails of Uran­tia af­fairs were fully pre­sented; they were ex­haus­tively in­structed as to the plans to be pur­sued in ac­cept­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of ruler­ship on such a strife-torn world. They were put un­der joint oaths of al­le­giance to the Most Highs of Eden­tia and to Mi­chael of Sal­ving­ton. And they were duly ad­vised to re­gard them­selves as sub­ject to the Uran­tia corps of Mel­chiz­e­dek re­ceivers un­til that gov­ern­ing body should see fit to re­lin­quish rule on the world of their as­sign­ment.

74:2.6The next act was the de­liv­ery of the charge of plan­e­tary cus­tody to Adam and Eve by the se­nior Mel­chiz­e­dek, chief of the coun­cil of re­ceiver­ship on Uran­tia. The Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter took the oath of al­le­giance to the Most Highs of Nor­la­ti­adek and to Mi­chael of Neb­a­don and were pro­claimed rulers of Uran­tia by Van, who thereby re­lin­quished the tit­u­lar au­thor­ity which for over one hun­dred and fifty thou­sand years he had held by virtue of the ac­tion of the Mel­chiz­e­dek re­ceivers.

75:4.2And as the Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter thus com­muned in the moon­lit Gar­den, “the voice in the Gar­den” re­proved them for dis­obe­di­ence. And that voice was none other than my own an­nounce­ment to the Edenic pair that they had trans­gressed the Gar­den covenant; that they had dis­obeyed the in­struc­tions of the Mel­chiz­e­deks; that they had de­faulted in the ex­e­cu­tion of their oaths of trust to the sov­er­eign of the uni­verse.

21:3.12In ac­cept­ing the ini­tial vicegerent sov­er­eignty of a pro­jected lo­cal uni­verse, a Cre­ator Mi­chael takes an oath to the Trin­ity not to as­sume su­preme sov­er­eignty un­til the seven crea­ture be­stowals have been com­pleted and cer­ti­fied by the super­uni­verse rulers. But if a Mi­chael Son could not, at will, as­sert such un­earned sov­er­eignty, there would be no mean­ing in tak­ing an oath not to do so.

21:4.5It is of rec­ord that the di­vine Son of last ap­pear­ance on your planet was a Par­a­dise Cre­ator Son who had com­pleted six phases of his be­stowal ca­reer; con­se­quently, when he gave up the con­scious grasp of the in­car­nated life on Uran­tia, he could, and did, truly say, “It is fin­ished”—it was lit­er­ally fin­ished. His death on Uran­tia com­pleted his be­stowal ca­reer; it was the last step in ful­fill­ing the sa­cred oath of a Par­a­dise Cre­ator Son. And when this ex­pe­ri­ence has been ac­quired, such Sons are su­preme uni­verse sov­er­eigns; no longer do they rule as vicegerents of the Fa­ther but in their own right and name as “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” With cer­tain stated ex­cep­tions these sev­en­fold be­stowal Sons are un­qual­i­fiedly su­preme in the uni­verses of their abode. Con­cern­ing his lo­cal uni­verse, “all power in heaven and on earth” was rel­e­gated to this tri­umphant and en­throned Mas­ter Son.

190:1.5“Men and breth­ren, all this time you have served me in ac­cor­dance with your oath to me and to one an­other, and I call you to wit­ness that I have never yet sent out false in­for­ma­tion at your hands. I am about to send you on your last mis­sion as vol­un­teer mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, and in so do­ing I re­lease you from your oaths and thereby dis­band the mes­sen­ger corps. Men, I de­clare to you that we have fin­ished our work. No more does the Mas­ter have need of mor­tal mes­sen­gers; he has risen from the dead. He told us be­fore they ar­rested him that he would die and rise again on the third day. I have seen the tomb—it is empty. I have talked with Mary Mag­da­lene and four other women, who have talked with Je­sus. I now dis­band you, bid you farewell, and send you on your re­spec­tive as­sign­ments, and the mes­sage which you shall bear to the be­liev­ers is: ‘Je­sus has risen from the dead; the tomb is empty.’”

190:1.6The ma­jor­ity of those pres­ent en­deav­ored to per­suade David not to do this. But they could not in­flu­ence him. They then sought to dis­suade the mes­sen­gers, but they would not heed the words of doubt. And so, shortly be­fore ten o’clock this Sun­day morn­ing, these twenty-six run­ners went forth as the first her­alds of the mighty truth-fact of the res­ur­rected Je­sus. And they started out on this mis­sion as they had on so many oth­ers, in ful­fill­ment of their oath to David Zeb­e­dee and to one an­other. These men had great con­fi­dence in David. They de­parted on this as­sign­ment with­out even tar­ry­ing to talk with those who had seen Je­sus; they took David at his word. The ma­jor­ity of them be­lieved what David had told them, and even those who some­what doubted, car­ried the mes­sage just as cer­tainly and just as swiftly.

74:7.11The schools, in fact ev­ery ac­tiv­ity of the Gar­den, were al­ways open to vis­i­tors. Un­armed ob­servers were freely ad­mit­ted to Eden for short vis­its. To so­journ in the Gar­den a Uran­tian had to be “adopted.” He re­ceived in­struc­tions in the plan and pur­pose of the Adamic be­stowal, sig­ni­fied his in­ten­tion to ad­here to this mis­sion, and then made dec­la­ra­tion of loy­alty to the so­cial rule of Adam and the spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

27:7.9And thus ends the story of the Par­a­dise super­na­phim, the high­est or­der of all the min­is­ter­ing spir­its, those be­ings who, as a uni­ver­sal class, ever at­tend you from the world of your ori­gin un­til you are fi­nally bid­den farewell by the con­duc­tors of wor­ship as you take the Trin­ity oath of eter­nity and are mus­tered into the Mor­tal Corps of the Fi­nal­ity.

30:4.317. Par­a­dise Ar­rivals. On reach­ing Par­a­dise with res­i­den­tial sta­tus, you be­gin the pro­gres­sive course in di­vin­ity and ab­sonity. Your res­i­dence on Par­a­dise sig­ni­fies that you have found God, and that you are to be mus­tered into the Mor­tal Corps of the Fi­nal­ity. Of all the crea­tures of the grand uni­verse, only those who are Fa­ther fused are mus­tered into the Mor­tal Corps of the Fi­nal­ity. Only such in­di­vid­u­als take the fi­nal­i­ter oath. Other be­ings of Par­a­dise per­fec­tion or at­tain­ment may be tem­porar­ily at­tached to this fi­nal­ity corps, but they are not of eter­nal as­sign­ment to the un­known and un­re­vealed mis­sion of this ac­cu­mu­lat­ing host of the evo­lu­tion­ary and per­fected vet­er­ans of time and space.

31:0.12We have no idea as to the na­ture of the fu­ture or­ga­ni­za­tion of this ex­traor­di­nary group, but the fi­nal­i­ters are now wholly a self-gov­ern­ing body. They choose their own per­ma­nent, pe­ri­odic, and as­sign­ment lead­ers and di­rec­tors. No out­side in­flu­ence can ever be brought to bear upon their poli­cies, and their oath of al­le­giance is only to the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

31:1.3The in­hab­i­tants of the cen­tral uni­verse are re­ceived into the corps in the ra­tio of one in a thou­sand—a fi­nal­i­ter com­pany. The corps is or­ga­nized for tem­po­rary ser­vice in com­pa­nies of one thou­sand, the as­cen­dant crea­tures num­ber­ing 997 to one Ha­vona na­tive and one Grav­ity Mes­sen­ger. Fi­nal­i­ters are thus mo­bi­lized in com­pa­nies, but the fi­nal­ity oath is ad­min­is­tered in­di­vid­u­ally. It is an oath of sweep­ing im­pli­ca­tions and eter­nal im­port. The Ha­vona na­tive takes the same oath and be­comes for­ever at­tached to the corps.

31:3.41. We know from the rec­ords that mor­tals are spir­its of the first or­der dur­ing their so­journ in the mi­nor sec­tors, and that they ad­vance to the sec­ond or­der when trans­lated to the ma­jor sec­tors, and to the third when they go for­ward to the cen­tral train­ing worlds of the super­uni­verse. Mor­tals be­come quar­tan or grad­u­ate spir­its af­ter reach­ing the sixth cir­cle of Ha­vona and be­come spir­its of the fifth or­der when they find the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. They sub­se­quently at­tain the sixth stage of spirit ex­is­tence upon tak­ing the oath that musters them for­ever into the eter­nity as­sign­ment of the Corps of the Mor­tal Fi­nal­ity.

31:4.1Many of the faith­ful se­raphic guard­i­ans of mor­tals are per­mit­ted to go through the as­cen­dant ca­reer with their hu­man wards, and many of these guard­ian an­gels, af­ter be­com­ing Fa­ther fused, join their sub­jects in tak­ing the fi­nal­i­ter oath of eter­nity and for­ever ac­cept the des­tiny of their mor­tal as­so­ciates. An­gels who pass through the as­cend­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of mor­tal be­ings may share the des­tiny of hu­man na­ture; they may equally and eter­nally be mus­tered into this Corps of the Fi­nal­ity. Large num­bers of the adopted and glo­ri­fied ser­a­phim are at­tached to the var­i­ous non­mor­tal fi­nal­i­ter corps.

31:8.4Al­though all mor­tals who at­tain Par­a­dise fre­quently frat­er­nize with the Tran­scen­den­talers as they do with the Par­a­dise Cit­i­zens, it de­vel­ops that man’s first se­ri­ous con­tact with a Tran­scen­den­taler oc­curs on that event­ful oc­ca­sion when, as a mem­ber of a new fi­nal­i­ter group, the mor­tal as­cender stands in the fi­nal­i­ter re­ceiv­ing cir­cle as the Trin­ity oath of eter­nity is ad­min­is­tered by the chief of Tran­scen­den­talers, the pre­sid­ing head of the Ar­chi­tects of the Mas­ter Uni­verse.

117:7.7When mor­tal as­cend­ers are ad­mit­ted to the fi­nal­i­ter corps of Par­a­dise, they take an oath to the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, and in tak­ing this oath of al­le­giance, they are thereby pledg­ing eter­nal fi­delity to God the Su­preme, who is the Trin­ity as com­pre­hended by all fi­nite crea­ture per­son­al­i­ties. Sub­se­quently, as the fi­nal­i­ter com­pa­nies func­tion through­out the evolv­ing uni­verses, they are solely amenable to the man­dates of Par­a­dise ori­gin un­til the event­ful times of the set­tling of lo­cal uni­verses in light and life. As the new gov­ern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions of these per­fected cre­ations be­gin to be re­flec­tive of the emerg­ing sov­er­eignty of the Su­preme, we ob­serve that the out­ly­ing fi­nal­i­ter com­pa­nies then ac­knowl­edge the ju­ris­dic­tional au­thor­ity of such new gov­ern­ments. It ap­pears that God the Su­preme is evolv­ing as the uni­fier of the evo­lu­tion­ary Corps of the Fi­nal­ity, but it is highly prob­a­ble that the eter­nal des­tiny of these seven corps will be di­rected by the Su­preme as a mem­ber of the Ul­ti­mate Trin­ity.

88:2.8The prac­tice of open­ing one of these sa­cred books to let the eye chance upon a pas­sage, the fol­low­ing of which may de­ter­mine im­por­tant life de­ci­sions or projects, is noth­ing more nor less than ar­rant fet­ish­ism. To take an oath on a “holy book” or to swear by some ob­ject of su­preme ven­er­a­tion is a form of re­fined fet­ish­ism.

70:11.3The oath orig­i­nated in the days of Dala­ma­tia in an ef­fort to ren­der tes­ti­mony more truth­ful. Such oaths con­sisted in pro­nounc­ing a curse upon one­self. For­merly no in­di­vid­ual would tes­tify against his na­tive group.

18:4.7You will early see the Per­fec­tions of Days when you ad­vance to the head­quar­ters of Splan­don af­ter your so­journ on the worlds of your mi­nor sec­tor, for these ex­alted rulers are closely as­so­ci­ated with the sev­enty ma­jor sec­tor worlds of higher train­ing for the as­cen­dant crea­tures of time. The Per­fec­tions of Days, in per­son, ad­min­is­ter the group pledges to the as­cend­ing grad­u­ates of the ma­jor sec­tor schools.

• adoption oath

70:3.8In later times, blood di­luted with red wine was used, and even­tu­ally wine alone was drunk to seal the adop­tion cer­e­mony, which was sig­ni­fied in the touch­ing of the wine cups and con­sum­mated by the swal­low­ing of the bev­er­age. The He­brews em­ployed a mod­i­fied form of this adop­tion cer­e­mony. Their Arab an­ces­tors made use of the oath taken while the hand of the can­di­date rested upon the gen­er­a­tive or­gan of the tribal na­tive. The He­brews treated adopted aliens kindly and fra­ter­nally. “The stranger that dwells with you shall be as one born among you, and you shall love him as your­self.”

• imposed by secret societies

70:7.16All se­cret as­so­ci­a­tions im­posed an oath, en­joined con­fi­dence, and taught the keep­ing of se­crets. These or­ders awed and con­trolled the mobs; they also acted as vig­i­lance so­ci­eties, thus prac­tic­ing lynch law. They were the first spies when the tribes were at war and the first se­cret po­lice dur­ing times of peace. Best of all they kept un­scrupu­lous kings on the anx­ious seat. To off­set them, the kings fos­tered their own se­cret po­lice.

• accompanied by self-torture

87:6.16Next came the prac­tice of rit­ual vows, soon to be fol­lowed by re­li­gious pledges and sa­cred oaths. Most of these oaths were ac­com­pa­nied by self-tor­ture and self-mu­ti­la­tion; later on, by fast­ing and prayer. Self-de­nial was sub­se­quently looked upon as be­ing a sure co­er­cive; this was es­pe­cially true in the mat­ter of sex sup­pres­sion. And so prim­i­tive man early de­vel­oped a de­cided aus­ter­ity in his re­li­gious prac­tices, a be­lief in the ef­fi­cacy of self-tor­ture and self-de­nial as rit­u­als ca­pa­ble of co­erc­ing the un­will­ing spir­its to re­act fa­vor­ably to­ward all such suf­fer­ing and de­pri­va­tion.

98:3.4The re­li­gious ini­ti­a­tion of Ro­man youths was the oc­ca­sion of their solemn con­se­cra­tion to the ser­vice of the state. Oaths and ad­mis­sions to cit­i­zen­ship were in re­al­ity re­li­gious cer­e­monies. The Latin peo­ples main­tained tem­ples, al­tars, and shrines and, in a cri­sis, would con­sult the or­a­cles. They pre­served the bones of heroes and later on those of the Chris­tian saints.

175:1.16“Woe upon you who dis­sim­u­late when you take an oath! You are trick­sters since you teach that a man may swear by the tem­ple and break his oath, but that whoso swears by the gold in the tem­ple must re­main bound. You are all fools and blind. You are not even con­sis­tent in your dis­hon­esty, for which is the greater, the gold or the tem­ple which has sup­pos­edly sanc­ti­fied the gold? You also teach that, if a man swears by the al­tar, it is noth­ing; but that, if one swears by the gift that is upon the al­tar, then shall he be held as a debtor. Again are you blind to the truth, for which is the greater, the gift or the al­tar which sanc­ti­fies the gift? How can you jus­tify such hypocrisy and dis­hon­esty in the sight of the God of heaven?