primary associators

29:4.13Per­son­al­ity is not nec­es­sar­ily a con­comi­tant of mind. Mind can think even when de­prived of all power of choice, as in nu­mer­ous of the lower types of an­i­mals and in cer­tain of these sub­or­di­nate phys­i­cal con­trol­lers. Many of these more au­to­matic reg­u­la­tors of phys­i­cal power are not per­sons in any sense of the term. They are not en­dowed with will and in­de­pen­dence of de­ci­sion, be­ing wholly sub­servient to the me­chan­i­cal per­fec­tion of de­sign for the tasks of their al­lot­ment. Nonethe­less all of them are highly in­tel­li­gent be­ings.

29:4.14The phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are chiefly oc­cu­pied in the ad­just­ment of ba­sic en­er­gies undis­cov­ered on Uran­tia. These un­known en­er­gies are very es­sen­tial to the in­ter­plan­e­tary sys­tem of trans­port and to cer­tain tech­niques of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. When we lay lines of en­ergy for the pur­pose of con­vey­ing sound equiv­a­lents or of ex­tend­ing vi­sion, these undis­cov­ered forms of en­ergy are uti­lized by the liv­ing phys­i­cal con­trol­lers and their as­so­ciates. These same en­er­gies are also, on oc­ca­sion, used by the mid­way crea­tures in their rou­tine work.

29:4.151. As­so­ciate Power Di­rec­tors. These mar­velously ef­fi­cient be­ings are in­trusted with the as­sign­ment and dis­patch of all or­ders of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers in ac­cor­dance with the ever-shift­ing needs of the con­stantly chang­ing en­ergy sta­tus of the realms. The vast re­serves of the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are main­tained on the head­quar­ters worlds of the mi­nor sec­tors, and from these con­cen­tra­tion points they are pe­ri­od­i­cally dis­patched by the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors to the head­quar­ters of the uni­verses, con­stel­la­tions, and sys­tems, and to the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. When thus as­signed, the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are pro­vi­sion­ally sub­ject to the or­ders of the di­vine ex­e­cu­tion­ers of the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions but are oth­er­wise solely amenable to their as­so­ciate di­rec­tors and to the Su­preme Power Cen­ters.

29:4.16Three mil­lion as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors are as­signed to each of the Or­von­ton mi­nor sec­tors, mak­ing a to­tal of three bil­lion as the super­uni­verse quota of these amaz­ingly ver­sa­tile be­ings. Their own re­serves are main­tained on these same mi­nor sec­tor worlds, where they also serve as in­struc­tors of all who study the sci­ences of the tech­niques of in­tel­li­gent en­ergy con­trol and trans­mu­ta­tion.

29:4.17These di­rec­tors al­ter­nate pe­ri­ods of ex­ec­u­tive ser­vice in the mi­nor sec­tors with equal pe­ri­ods of in­spec­tion ser­vice to the realms of space. At least one act­ing in­spec­tor is al­ways pres­ent in each lo­cal sys­tem, main­tain­ing head­quar­ters on its cap­i­tal sphere. They keep the whole vast liv­ing en­ergy ag­gre­ga­tion in har­mo­nious syn­chrony.

29:4.182. Me­chan­i­cal Con­trol­lers. These are the ex­ceed­ingly ver­sa­tile and mo­bile as­sis­tants of the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors. Tril­lions upon tril­lions of them are com­mis­sioned in Ensa, your mi­nor sec­tor. These be­ings are called me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers be­cause they are so com­pletely dom­i­nated by their su­pe­ri­ors, so fully sub­servient to the will of the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors. Nev­er­the­less they are, them­selves, very in­tel­li­gent, and their work, though me­chan­i­cal and mat­ter-of-fact in na­ture, is skill­fully per­formed.

29:4.19Of all the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers as­signed to the in­hab­ited worlds, the me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers are by far the most pow­er­ful. Pos­sess­ing the liv­ing en­dow­ment of anti­grav­ity in ex­cess of all other be­ings, each con­trol­ler has a grav­ity re­sis­tance equaled only by enor­mous spheres re­volv­ing at tremen­dous ve­loc­ity. Ten of these con­trol­lers are now sta­tioned on Uran­tia, and one of their most im­por­tant plan­e­tary ac­tiv­i­ties is to fa­cil­i­tate the de­par­ture of se­raphic trans­ports. In so func­tion­ing, all ten of the me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers act in uni­son while a bat­tery of one thou­sand en­ergy trans­mit­ters pro­vides the ini­tial mo­men­tum for the se­raphic de­par­ture.

29:4.20The me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers are com­pe­tent to di­rec­tion­ize the flow of en­ergy and to fa­cil­i­tate its con­cen­tra­tion into the spe­cial­ized cur­rents or cir­cuits. These mighty be­ings have much to do with the seg­re­ga­tion, di­rec­tion­iza­tion, and in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of the phys­i­cal en­er­gies and with the equal­iza­tion of the pres­sures of the in­ter­plan­e­tary cir­cuits. They are ex­pert in the ma­nip­u­la­tion of twenty-one of the thirty phys­i­cal en­er­gies of space, con­sti­tut­ing the power charge of a super­uni­verse. They are also able to ac­com­plish much to­wards the man­age­ment and con­trol of six of the nine more sub­tle forms of phys­i­cal en­ergy. By plac­ing these con­trol­lers in proper tech­ni­cal re­la­tion­ship to each other and to cer­tain of the power cen­ters, the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors are en­abled to ef­fect un­be­liev­able changes in power ad­just­ment and en­ergy con­trol.

29:4.21The Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers of­ten func­tion in bat­ter­ies of hun­dreds, thou­sands, and even mil­lions and by vary­ing their po­si­tions and for­ma­tions are able to ef­fect en­ergy con­trol in a col­lec­tive as well as an in­di­vid­ual ca­pac­ity. As re­quire­ments vary, they can up­step and ac­cel­er­ate the en­ergy vol­ume and move­ment or de­tain, con­dense, and re­tard the en­ergy cur­rents. They in­flu­ence en­ergy and power trans­for­ma­tions some­what as so-called cat­alytic agents aug­ment chem­i­cal re­ac­tions. They func­tion by in­her­ent abil­ity and in co-op­er­a­tion with the Su­preme Power Cen­ters.

29:4.223. En­ergy Trans­form­ers. The num­ber of these be­ings in a super­uni­verse is un­be­liev­able. There are al­most one mil­lion in Sa­ta­nia alone, and the usual quota is one hun­dred for each in­hab­ited world.

29:4.23The en­ergy trans­form­ers are the con­joint cre­ation of the Seven Su­preme Power Di­rec­tors and the Seven Cen­ter Super­vi­sors. They are among the more per­sonal or­ders of phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, and ex­cept when an as­so­ciate power di­rec­tor is pres­ent on an in­hab­ited world, the trans­form­ers are in com­mand. They are the plan­e­tary in­spec­tors of all de­part­ing se­raphic trans­ports. All classes of ce­les­tial life can uti­lize the less per­sonal or­ders of the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers only by li­ai­son with the more per­sonal or­ders of the as­so­ciate di­rec­tors and the en­ergy trans­form­ers.

29:4.24These trans­form­ers are pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive liv­ing switches, be­ing able to dis­pose them­selves for or against a given power dis­po­si­tion or di­rec­tion­iza­tion. They are also skill­ful in their ef­forts to in­su­late the plan­ets against the pow­er­ful en­ergy streams pass­ing be­tween gi­gan­tic plan­e­tary and starry neigh­bors. Their en­ergy-trans­mu­tive at­tri­butes ren­der them most ser­vice­able in the im­por­tant task of main­tain­ing uni­ver­sal en­ergy bal­ance, or power equi­lib­rium. At one time they seem to con­sume or store en­ergy; at other times they ap­pear to ex­ude or lib­er­ate en­ergy. The trans­form­ers are able to in­crease or to di­min­ish the “stor­age-bat­tery” po­ten­tial of the liv­ing and dead en­er­gies of their re­spec­tive realms. But they deal only with phys­i­cal and semi­ma­te­rial en­er­gies, they do not di­rectly func­tion in the do­main of life, nei­ther do they change the forms of liv­ing be­ings.

29:4.25In some re­spects the en­ergy trans­form­ers are the most re­mark­able and mys­te­ri­ous of all semi­ma­te­rial liv­ing crea­tures. They are in some un­known man­ner phys­i­cally dif­fer­en­ti­ated, and by vary­ing their li­ai­son re­la­tion­ships, they are able to ex­ert a pro­found in­flu­ence upon the en­ergy which passes through their as­so­ci­ated pres­ences. The sta­tus of the phys­i­cal realms seems to un­dergo a trans­for­ma­tion un­der their skill­ful ma­nip­u­la­tion. They can and do change the phys­i­cal form of the en­er­gies of space. With the aid of their fel­low con­trol­lers they are ac­tu­ally able to change the form and po­ten­tial of twenty-seven of the thirty phys­i­cal en­er­gies of the super­uni­verse power charge. That three of these en­er­gies are be­yond their con­trol proves that they are not in­stru­men­tal­i­ties of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

29:4.26The re­main­ing four groups of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers are hardly per­sons within any ac­cept­able def­i­ni­tion of that word. These trans­mit­ters, as­so­ci­a­tors, dis­so­ci­a­tors, and fran­dalanks are wholly au­to­matic in their re­ac­tions; nev­er­the­less they are in ev­ery sense in­tel­li­gent. We are greatly lim­ited in our knowl­edge of these won­der­ful en­ti­ties be­cause we can­not com­mu­ni­cate with them. They ap­pear to un­der­stand the lan­guage of the realm, but they can­not com­mu­ni­cate with us. They seem fully able to re­ceive our com­mu­ni­ca­tions but quite pow­er­less to make re­sponse.

29:4.274. En­ergy Trans­mit­ters. These be­ings func­tion chiefly, but not wholly, in an in­tra­plan­e­tary ca­pac­ity. They are mar­velous dis­patch­ers of en­ergy as it is man­i­fested on the in­di­vid­ual worlds.

29:4.28When en­ergy is to be di­verted to a new cir­cuit, the trans­mit­ters de­ploy them­selves in a line along the de­sired en­ergy path, and by virtue of their unique at­tri­butes of en­ergy-at­trac­tion, they can ac­tu­ally in­duce an in­creased en­ergy flow in the de­sired di­rec­tion. This they do just as lit­er­ally as cer­tain metal­lic cir­cuits di­rec­tion­ize the flow of cer­tain forms of elec­tric en­ergy; and they are liv­ing super­con­duc­tors for more than half of the thirty forms of phys­i­cal en­ergy.

29:4.29Trans­mit­ters form skill­ful li­aisons which are ef­fec­tive in re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing the weak­en­ing cur­rents of spe­cial­ized en­ergy pass­ing from planet to planet and from sta­tion to sta­tion on an in­di­vid­ual planet. They can de­tect cur­rents which are much too fee­ble to be rec­og­nized by any other type of liv­ing be­ing, and they can so aug­ment these en­er­gies that the ac­com­pa­ny­ing mes­sage be­comes per­fectly in­tel­li­gi­ble. Their ser­vices are in­valu­able to the broad­cast re­ceivers.

29:4.30En­ergy trans­mit­ters can func­tion with re­gard to all forms of com­mu­ni­ca­ble per­cep­tion; they can ren­der a dis­tant scene “vis­i­ble” as well as a dis­tant sound “au­di­ble.” They pro­vide the emer­gency lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the lo­cal sys­tems and on the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. These ser­vices must be used by prac­ti­cally all crea­tures for pur­poses of com­mu­ni­ca­tion out­side of the reg­u­larly es­tab­lished cir­cuits.

29:4.31These be­ings, to­gether with the en­ergy trans­form­ers, are in­dis­pens­able to the main­te­nance of mor­tal ex­is­tence on those worlds hav­ing an im­pov­er­ished at­mo­sphere, and they are an in­te­gral part of the tech­nique of life on the non­breath­ing plan­ets.

29:4.33Dur­ing sea­sons of mi­nus man­i­fes­ta­tions they are em­pow­ered to re­lease these ac­cu­mu­lated en­er­gies. But your knowl­edge of en­ergy and mat­ter is not suf­fi­ciently ad­vanced to make it pos­si­ble to ex­plain the tech­nique of this phase of their work. They al­ways la­bor in com­pli­ance with uni­ver­sal law, han­dling and ma­nip­u­lat­ing atoms, elec­trons, and ul­ti­ma­tons much as you ma­neu­ver ad­justable type to make the same al­pha­bet­i­cal sym­bols tell vastly dif­fer­ent sto­ries.