seas of glass

43:1.11A crys­tal field on this or­der is found on al­most all ar­chi­tec­tural worlds; and it serves many pur­poses aside from its dec­o­ra­tive value, be­ing uti­lized for por­tray­ing super­uni­verse re­flec­tiv­ity to as­sem­bled groups and as a fac­tor in the en­ergy-trans­for­ma­tion tech­nique for mod­i­fy­ing the cur­rents of space and for adapt­ing other in­com­ing phys­i­cal-en­ergy streams.

47:4.3As you as­cend the man­sion worlds one by one, they be­come more crowded with the mor­ontia ac­tiv­i­ties of ad­vanc­ing sur­vivors. As you go for­ward, you will rec­og­nize more and more of the Je­ru­sem fea­tures added to the man­sion worlds. The sea of glass makes its ap­pear­ance on the sec­ond man­so­nia.

43:1.7The sea of glass, the re­ceiv­ing area of Eden­tia, is near the ad­min­is­tra­tive cen­ter and is en­cir­cled by the head­quar­ters am­phithe­ater. Sur­round­ing this area are the gov­ern­ing cen­ters for the sev­enty di­vi­sions of con­stel­la­tion af­fairs. One half of Eden­tia is di­vided into sev­enty tri­an­gu­lar sec­tions, whose bound­aries con­verge at the head­quar­ters build­ings of their re­spec­tive sec­tors. The re­main­der of this sphere is one vast nat­u­ral park, the gar­dens of God.

43:1.10The Eden­tia sea of glass is one enor­mous cir­cu­lar crys­tal about one hun­dred miles in cir­cum­fer­ence and about thirty miles in depth. This mag­nif­i­cent crys­tal serves as the re­ceiv­ing field for all trans­port ser­a­phim and other be­ings ar­riv­ing from points out­side the sphere; such a sea of glass greatly fa­cil­i­tates the land­ing of trans­port ser­a­phim.

• conclaves with Lanaforge take place on

45:2.6These unique as­sem­blages oc­cur on the sea of glass, the great gath­er­ing field of the sys­tem cap­i­tal. They are purely so­cial and spir­i­tual oc­ca­sions; noth­ing per­tain­ing to the plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion or even to the as­cen­dant plan is ever dis­cussed. As­cend­ing mor­tals come to­gether at these times merely to en­joy them­selves and to meet their fel­low Jerusemites. Those groups which are not be­ing en­ter­tained by the Sov­er­eign at these weekly re­lax­ations meet at their own head­quar­ters.

• polar crystal

46:2.9Trans­ports ar­rive on the crys­tal field, the so-called sea of glass. Around this area are the re­ceiv­ing sta­tions for the var­i­ous or­ders of be­ings who tra­verse space by se­raphic trans­port. Near the po­lar crys­tal re­ceiv­ing sta­tion for stu­dent vis­i­tors you may as­cend the pearly ob­ser­va­tory and view the im­mense re­lief map of the en­tire head­quar­ters planet.

• polar crystal

46:3.1The super­uni­verse and Par­a­dise-Ha­vona broad­casts are re­ceived on Je­ru­sem in li­ai­son with Sal­ving­ton and by a tech­nique in­volv­ing the po­lar crys­tal, the sea of glass. In ad­di­tion to pro­vi­sions for the re­cep­tion of these ex­tra-Neb­a­don com­mu­ni­ca­tions, there are three dis­tinct groups of re­ceiv­ing sta­tions. These sep­a­rate but tri­cir­cu­lar groups of sta­tions are ad­justed to the re­cep­tion of broad­casts from the lo­cal worlds, from the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters, and from the cap­i­tal of the lo­cal uni­verse. All these broad­casts are au­to­mat­i­cally dis­played so as to be dis­cern­i­ble by all types of be­ings pres­ent in the cen­tral broad­cast am­phithe­ater; of all pre­oc­cu­pa­tions for an as­cen­dant mor­tal on Je­ru­sem, none is more en­gag­ing and en­gross­ing than that of lis­ten­ing in on the never-end­ing stream of uni­verse space re­ports.

46:3.2This Je­ru­sem broad­cast-re­ceiv­ing sta­tion is en­cir­cled by an enor­mous am­phithe­ater, con­structed of scin­til­lat­ing ma­te­ri­als largely un­known on Uran­tia and seat­ing over five bil­lion be­ings—ma­te­rial and mor­ontia—be­sides ac­com­mo­dat­ing in­nu­mer­able spirit per­son­al­i­ties. It is the fa­vorite di­ver­sion for all Je­ru­sem to spend their leisure at the broad­cast sta­tion, there to learn of the wel­fare and state of the uni­verse. And this is the only plan­e­tary ac­tiv­ity which is not slowed down dur­ing the re­ces­sion of light.

46:3.3At this broad­cast-re­ceiv­ing am­phithe­ater the Sal­ving­ton mes­sages are com­ing in con­tin­u­ously. Near by, the Eden­tia word of the Most High Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers is re­ceived at least once a day. Pe­ri­od­i­cally the reg­u­lar and spe­cial broad­casts of Uversa are re­layed through Sal­ving­ton, and when Par­a­dise mes­sages are in re­cep­tion, the en­tire pop­u­la­tion is as­sem­bled around the sea of glass, and the Uversa friends add the re­flec­tiv­ity phe­nom­ena to the tech­nique of the Par­a­dise broad­cast so that ev­ery­thing heard be­comes vis­i­ble. And it is in this man­ner that con­tin­ual fore­tastes of ad­vanc­ing beauty and grandeur are af­forded the mor­tal sur­vivors as they jour­ney in­ward on the eter­nal ad­ven­ture.

46:3.4The Je­ru­sem send­ing sta­tion is lo­cated at the op­po­site pole of the sphere. All broad­casts to the in­di­vid­ual worlds are re­layed from the sys­tem cap­i­tals ex­cept the Mi­chael mes­sages, which some­times go di­rect to their des­ti­na­tions over the arch­an­gels’ cir­cuit.

47:9.4The per­son­nel of the sev­enth man­so­nia as­sem­ble on the sea of glass to wit­ness your de­par­ture for Je­ru­sem with res­i­den­tial sta­tus. Hun­dreds or thou­sands of times you may have vis­ited Je­ru­sem, but al­ways as a guest; never be­fore have you pro­ceeded to­ward the sys­tem cap­i­tal in the com­pany of a group of your fel­lows who were bid­ding an eter­nal farewell to the whole man­so­nia ca­reer as as­cend­ing mor­tals. You will soon be wel­comed on the re­ceiv­ing field of the head­quar­ters world as Je­ru­sem cit­i­zens.

47:10.2John the Rev­e­la­tor saw a vi­sion of the ar­rival of a class of ad­vanc­ing mor­tals from the sev­enth man­sion world to their first heaven, the glo­ries of Je­ru­sem. He re­corded: “And I saw as it were a sea of glass min­gled with fire; and those who had gained the vic­tory over the beast that was orig­i­nally in them and over the im­age that per­sisted through the man­sion worlds and fi­nally over the last mark and trace, stand­ing on the sea of glass, hav­ing the harps of God, and singing the song of de­liv­er­ance from mor­tal fear and death.” (Per­fected space com­mu­ni­ca­tion is to be had on all these worlds; and your any­where re­cep­tion of such com­mu­ni­ca­tions is made pos­si­ble by car­ry­ing the “harp of God,” a mor­ontia con­trivance com­pen­sat­ing for the in­abil­ity to di­rectly ad­just the im­ma­ture mor­ontia sen­sory mech­a­nism to the re­cep­tion of space com­mu­ni­ca­tions.)