stone

• basic building matter for planets

41:6.1In de­ci­pher­ing spec­tral phe­nom­ena, it should be re­mem­bered that space is not empty; that light, in travers­ing space, is some­times slightly mod­i­fied by the var­i­ous forms of en­ergy and mat­ter which cir­cu­late in all or­ga­nized space. Some of the lines in­di­cat­ing un­known mat­ter which ap­pear in the spec­tra of your sun are due to mod­i­fi­ca­tions of well-known el­e­ments which are float­ing through­out space in shat­tered form, the atomic ca­su­al­ties of the fierce en­coun­ters of the so­lar el­e­men­tal bat­tles. Space is per­vaded by these wan­der­ing dere­licts, es­pe­cially sodium and cal­cium.

41:6.2Cal­cium is, in fact, the chief el­e­ment of the mat­ter-per­me­ation of space through­out Or­von­ton. Our whole super­uni­verse is sprin­kled with minutely pul­ver­ized stone. Stone is lit­er­ally the ba­sic build­ing mat­ter for the plan­ets and spheres of space. The cos­mic cloud, the great space blan­ket, con­sists for the most part of the mod­i­fied atoms of cal­cium. The stone atom is one of the most preva­lent and per­sis­tent of the el­e­ments. It not only en­dures so­lar ion­iza­tion—split­ting—but per­sists in an as­so­cia­tive iden­tity even af­ter it has been bat­tered by the de­struc­tive X rays and shat­tered by the high so­lar tem­per­a­tures. Cal­cium pos­sesses an in­di­vid­u­al­ity and a longevity ex­celling all of the more com­mon forms of mat­ter.

• Urantia’s sun has a 6,000 mile thick gaseous s. surface

41:6.3As your physi­cists have sus­pected, these mu­ti­lated rem­nants of so­lar cal­cium lit­er­ally ride the light beams for var­ied dis­tances, and thus their wide­spread dis­sem­i­na­tion through­out space is tremen­dously fa­cil­i­tated. The sodium atom, un­der cer­tain mod­i­fi­ca­tions, is also ca­pa­ble of light and en­ergy lo­co­mo­tion. The cal­cium feat is all the more re­mark­able since this el­e­ment has al­most twice the mass of sodium. Lo­cal space-per­me­ation by cal­cium is due to the fact that it es­capes from the so­lar pho­to­sphere, in mod­i­fied form, by lit­er­ally rid­ing the out­go­ing sun­beams. Of all the so­lar el­e­ments, cal­cium, not­with­stand­ing its com­par­a­tive bulk—con­tain­ing as it does twenty re­volv­ing elec­trons—is the most suc­cess­ful in es­cap­ing from the so­lar in­te­rior to the realms of space. This ex­plains why there is a cal­cium layer, a gaseous stone sur­face, on the sun six thou­sand miles thick; and this de­spite the fact that nine­teen lighter el­e­ments, and nu­mer­ous heav­ier ones, are un­der­neath.

41:6.4Cal­cium is an ac­tive and ver­sa­tile el­e­ment at so­lar tem­per­a­tures. The stone atom has two ag­ile and loosely at­tached elec­trons in the two outer elec­tronic cir­cuits, which are very close to­gether. Early in the atomic strug­gle it loses its outer elec­tron; where­upon it en­gages in a mas­ter­ful act of jug­gling the nine­teenth elec­tron back and forth be­tween the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cir­cuits of elec­tronic rev­o­lu­tion. By toss­ing this nine­teenth elec­tron back and forth be­tween its own or­bit and that of its lost com­pan­ion more than twenty-five thou­sand times a sec­ond, a mu­ti­lated stone atom is able par­tially to defy grav­ity and thus suc­cess­fully to ride the emerg­ing streams of light and en­ergy, the sun­beams, to lib­erty and ad­ven­ture. This cal­cium atom moves out­ward by al­ter­nate jerks of for­ward propul­sion, grasp­ing and let­ting go the sun­beam about twenty-five thou­sand times each sec­ond. And this is why stone is the chief com­po­nent of the worlds of space. Cal­cium is the most ex­pert so­lar-prison es­ca­per.

41:6.5The agility of this ac­ro­batic cal­cium elec­tron is in­di­cated by the fact that, when tossed by the tem­per­a­ture-X-ray so­lar forces to the cir­cle of the higher or­bit, it only re­mains in that or­bit for about one one-mil­lionth of a sec­ond; but be­fore the elec­tric-grav­ity power of the atomic nu­cleus pulls it back into its old or­bit, it is able to com­plete one mil­lion rev­o­lu­tions about the atomic cen­ter.

41:6.6Your sun has parted with an enor­mous quan­tity of its cal­cium, hav­ing lost tremen­dous amounts dur­ing the times of its con­vul­sive erup­tions in con­nec­tion with the for­ma­tion of the so­lar sys­tem. Much of the so­lar cal­cium is now in the outer crust of the sun.

• coal layers alternate with

59:5.15The coal lay­ers al­ter­nate with shale, stone, and con­glom­er­ate. These coal beds over cen­tral and east­ern United States vary in thick­ness from forty to fifty feet. But many of these de­posits were washed away dur­ing sub­se­quent land el­e­va­tions. In some parts of North Amer­ica and Eu­rope the coal-bear­ing strata are 18,000 feet in thick­ness.

• Sontad rolled s. in front of deceased parents’ cave

63:3.5Upon the death of his par­ents, Son­tad, de­spite a se­ri­ously in­jured foot, im­me­di­ately as­sumed the lead­er­ship of the clan and was ably as­sisted by his wife, his el­dest sis­ter. Their first task was to roll up stones to ef­fec­tively en­tomb their dead par­ents, broth­ers, sis­ters, and chil­dren. Un­due sig­nif­i­cance should not at­tach to this act of burial. Their ideas of sur­vival af­ter death were very vague and in­def­i­nite, be­ing largely de­rived from their fan­tas­tic and var­ie­gated dream life.

• early people wrote on

66:5.94. The fac­ulty on dis­sem­i­na­tion and con­ser­va­tion of knowl­edge. This group or­ga­nized and di­rected the purely ed­u­ca­tional en­deav­ors of those early ages. It was pre­sided over by Fad. The ed­u­ca­tional meth­ods of Fad con­sisted in super­vi­sion of em­ploy­ment ac­com­pa­nied by in­struc­tion in im­proved meth­ods of la­bor. Fad for­mu­lated the first al­pha­bet and in­tro­duced a writ­ing sys­tem. This al­pha­bet con­tained twenty-five char­ac­ters. For writ­ing ma­te­rial these early peo­ples uti­lized tree barks, clay tablets, stone slabs, a form of parch­ment made of ham­mered hides, and a crude form of pa­per­like ma­te­rial made from wasps’ nests. The Dala­ma­tia li­brary, de­stroyed soon af­ter the Cali­gas­tia dis­af­fec­tion, com­prised more than two mil­lion sep­a­rate rec­ords and was known as the “house of Fad.”

• 100 men working together can move a great

68:1.4Prim­i­tive hu­man be­ings early learned that groups are vastly greater and stronger than the mere sum of their in­di­vid­ual units. One hun­dred men united and work­ing in uni­son can move a great stone; a score of well-trained guard­i­ans of the peace can re­strain an an­gry mob. And so so­ci­ety was born, not of mere as­so­ci­a­tion of num­bers, but rather as a re­sult of the or­ga­ni­za­tion of in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tors. But co-op­er­a­tion is not a nat­u­ral trait of man; he learns to co-op­er­ate first through fear and then later be­cause he dis­cov­ers it is most ben­e­fi­cial in meet­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties of time and guard­ing against the sup­posed per­ils of eter­nity.

• stones › clans engaged in all-day battles with

70:1.6But even this did not work at first. When the early chiefs would try to iron out mis­un­der­stand­ings, they of­ten found it nec­es­sary, at least once a year, to per­mit the tribal stone fights. The clan would di­vide up into two groups and en­gage in an all-day bat­tle. And this for no other rea­son than just the fun of it; they re­ally en­joyed fight­ing.

• early commerce in

79:1.4When cli­matic con­di­tions made hunt­ing un­prof­itable for the mi­grat­ing And­ites, they did not fol­low the evo­lu­tion­ary course of the older races by be­com­ing herders. Com­merce and ur­ban life made their ap­pear­ance. From Egypt through Mes­o­po­ta­mia and Tur­kes­tan to the rivers of China and In­dia, the more highly civ­i­lized tribes be­gan to as­sem­ble in cities de­voted to man­u­fac­ture and trade. Ado­nia be­came the cen­tral Asian com­mer­cial metropo­lis, be­ing lo­cated near the pres­ent city of Ashkhabad. Com­merce in stone, metal, wood, and pot­tery was ac­cel­er­ated on both land and wa­ter.

• Cretan Andites built with s. ca. 12,000 B.C.

80:7.2About 12,000 B.C. a bril­liant tribe of And­ites mi­grated to Crete. This was the only is­land set­tled so early by such a su­pe­rior group, and it was al­most two thou­sand years be­fore the de­scen­dants of these mariners spread to the neigh­bor­ing isles. This group were the nar­row-headed, smaller-statured And­ites who had in­ter­mar­ried with the Van­ite di­vi­sion of the north­ern Nod­ites. They were all un­der six feet in height and had been lit­er­ally driven off the main­land by their larger and in­fe­rior fel­lows. These em­i­grants to Crete were highly skilled in tex­tiles, met­als, pot­tery, plumb­ing, and the use of stone for build­ing ma­te­rial. They en­gaged in writ­ing and car­ried on as herders and agri­cul­tur­ists.

• stones › first objects to be worshiped

85:1.1The first ob­ject to be wor­shiped by evolv­ing man was a stone. To­day the Ka­teri peo­ple of south­ern In­dia still wor­ship a stone, as do nu­mer­ous tribes in north­ern In­dia. Ja­cob slept on a stone be­cause he ven­er­ated it; he even anointed it. Rachel con­cealed a num­ber of sa­cred stones in her tent.

85:1.2Stones first im­pressed early man as be­ing out of the or­di­nary be­cause of the man­ner in which they would so sud­denly ap­pear on the sur­face of a cul­ti­vated field or pas­ture. Men failed to take into ac­count ei­ther ero­sion or the re­sults of the over­turn­ing of soil. Stones also greatly im­pressed early peo­ples be­cause of their fre­quent re­sem­blance to an­i­mals. The at­ten­tion of civ­i­lized man is ar­rested by nu­mer­ous stone for­ma­tions in the moun­tains which so much re­sem­ble the faces of an­i­mals and even men. But the most pro­found in­flu­ence was ex­erted by me­te­oric stones which prim­i­tive hu­mans be­held hurtling through the at­mo­sphere in flam­ing grandeur. The shoot­ing star was awe­some to early man, and he eas­ily be­lieved that such blaz­ing streaks marked the pas­sage of a spirit on its way to earth. No won­der men were led to wor­ship such phe­nom­ena, es­pe­cially when they sub­se­quently dis­cov­ered the me­te­ors. And this led to greater rev­er­ence for all other stones. In Ben­gal many wor­ship a me­teor which fell to earth in A.D. 1880.

85:1.3All an­cient clans and tribes had their sa­cred stones, and most mod­ern peo­ples man­i­fest a de­gree of ven­er­a­tion for cer­tain types of stones—their jew­els. A group of five stones was rev­er­enced in In­dia; in Greece it was a clus­ter of thirty; among the red men it was usu­ally a cir­cle of stones. The Ro­mans al­ways threw a stone into the air when in­vok­ing Jupiter. In In­dia even to this day a stone can be used as a wit­ness. In some re­gions a stone may be em­ployed as a tal­is­man of the law, and by its pres­tige an of­fender can be haled into court. But sim­ple mor­tals do not al­ways iden­tify De­ity with an ob­ject of rev­er­ent cer­e­mony. Such fe­tishes are many times mere sym­bols of the real ob­ject of wor­ship.

85:1.4The an­cients had a pe­cu­liar re­gard for holes in stones. Such porous rocks were sup­posed to be un­usu­ally ef­fi­ca­cious in cur­ing dis­eases. Ears were not per­fo­rated to carry stones, but the stones were put in to keep the ear holes open. Even in mod­ern times su­per­sti­tious per­sons make holes in coins. In Africa the na­tives make much ado over their fe­tish stones. In fact, among all back­ward tribes and peo­ples stones are still held in su­per­sti­tious ven­er­a­tion. Stone wor­ship is even now wide­spread over the world. The tomb­stone is a sur­viv­ing sym­bol of im­ages and idols which were carved in stone in con­nec­tion with be­liefs in ghosts and the spir­its of de­parted fel­low be­ings.

85:1.5Hill wor­ship fol­lowed stone wor­ship, and the first hills to be ven­er­ated were large stone for­ma­tions. It pres­ently be­came the cus­tom to be­lieve that the gods in­hab­ited the moun­tains, so that high el­e­va­tions of land were wor­shiped for this ad­di­tional rea­son. As time passed, cer­tain moun­tains were as­so­ci­ated with cer­tain gods and there­fore be­came holy. The ig­no­rant and su­per­sti­tious abo­rig­ines be­lieved that caves led to the un­der­world, with its evil spir­its and demons, in con­trast with the moun­tains, which were iden­ti­fied with the later evolv­ing con­cepts of good spir­its and de­i­ties.

• stones › string of beads was once battery of charms

88:1.2The first fe­tishes were pe­cu­liarly marked peb­bles, and “sa­cred stones” have ever since been sought by man; a string of beads was once a col­lec­tion of sa­cred stones, a bat­tery of charms. Many tribes had fe­tish stones, but few have sur­vived as have the Kaaba and the Stone of Scone. Fire and wa­ter were also among the early fe­tishes, and fire wor­ship, to­gether with be­lief in holy wa­ter, still sur­vives.

• stones › 12 stones were memorial set up by Joshua

135:6.7John was a heroic but tact­less preacher. One day when he was preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing on the west bank of the Jor­dan, a group of Phar­isees and a num­ber of Sad­ducees came for­ward and pre­sented them­selves for bap­tism. Be­fore lead­ing them down into the wa­ter, John, ad­dress­ing them as a group said: “Who warned you to flee, as vipers be­fore the fire, from the wrath to come? I will bap­tize you, but I warn you to bring forth fruit wor­thy of sin­cere re­pen­tance if you would re­ceive the re­mis­sion of your sins. Tell me not that Abra­ham is your fa­ther. I de­clare that God is able of these twelve stones here be­fore you to raise up wor­thy chil­dren for Abra­ham. And even now is the ax laid to the very roots of the trees. Ev­ery tree that brings not forth good fruit is des­tined to be cut down and cast into the fire.” (The twelve stones to which he re­ferred were the re­puted memo­rial stones set up by Joshua to com­mem­o­rate the cross­ing of the “twelve tribes” at this very point when they first en­tered the prom­ised land.)

• stones › command to become bread

136:6.1Hav­ing set­tled his pol­icy con­cern­ing all per­son­al­i­ties of all classes of his cre­ated in­tel­li­gences, so far as this could be de­ter­mined in view of the in­her­ent po­ten­tial of his new sta­tus of di­vin­ity, Je­sus now turned his thoughts to­ward him­self. What would he, now the fully self-con­scious cre­ator of all things and be­ings ex­is­tent in this uni­verse, do with these cre­ator pre­rog­a­tives in the re­cur­ring life sit­u­a­tions which would im­me­di­ately con­front him when he re­turned to Gal­i­lee to re­sume his work among men? In fact, al­ready, and right where he was in these lonely hills, had this prob­lem forcibly pre­sented it­self in the mat­ter of ob­tain­ing food. By the third day of his soli­tary med­i­ta­tions the hu­man body grew hun­gry. Should he go in quest of food as any or­di­nary man would, or should he merely ex­er­cise his nor­mal cre­ative pow­ers and pro­duce suit­able bod­ily nour­ish­ment ready at hand? And this great de­ci­sion of the Mas­ter has been por­trayed to you as a temp­ta­tion—as a chal­lenge by sup­posed en­e­mies that he “com­mand that these stones be­come loaves of bread.”

• if your child asks for

144:2.4“Which of you who is a fa­ther, if his son asks un­wisely, would hes­i­tate to give in ac­cor­dance with pa­ren­tal wis­dom rather than in the terms of the son’s faulty pe­ti­tion? If the child needs a loaf, will you give him a stone just be­cause he un­wisely asks for it? If your son needs a fish, will you give him a wa­ter­snake just be­cause it may chance to come up in the net with the fish and the child fool­ishly asks for the ser­pent? If you, then, be­ing mor­tal and fi­nite, know how to an­swer prayer and give good and ap­pro­pri­ate gifts to your chil­dren, how much more shall your heav­enly Fa­ther give the spirit and many ad­di­tional bless­ings to those who ask him? Men ought al­ways to pray and not be­come dis­cour­aged.

• stones › human s. in living temple of sonship

157:4.7And ever since that day this same Je­sus has been build­ing that liv­ing tem­ple upon that same eter­nal foun­da­tion of his di­vine son­ship, and those who thereby be­come self-con­scious sons of God are the hu­man stones which con­sti­tute this liv­ing tem­ple of son­ship erect­ing to the glory and honor of the wis­dom and love of the eter­nal Fa­ther of spir­its.

• stones › by roadside would cry out

172:3.13As they neared Je­ru­sa­lem, the crowd be­came more demon­stra­tive, so much so that some of the Phar­isees made their way up along­side Je­sus and said: “Teacher, you should re­buke your dis­ci­ples and ex­hort them to be­have more seemly.” Je­sus an­swered: “It is only fit­ting that these chil­dren should wel­come the Son of Peace, whom the chief priests have re­jected. It would be use­less to stop them lest in their stead these stones by the road­side cry out.”

• which builders rejected became cornerstone; whoso falls upon s. is broken in pieces but saved

173:4.4Je­sus saw a group of the Sad­ducees and Phar­isees mak­ing their way through the crowd, and he paused for a mo­ment un­til they drew near him, when he said: “You know how your fa­thers re­jected the proph­ets, and you well know that you are set in your hearts to re­ject the Son of Man.” And then, look­ing with search­ing gaze upon those priests and el­ders who were stand­ing near him, Je­sus said: “Did you never read in the Scrip­ture about the stone which the builders re­jected, and which, when the peo­ple had dis­cov­ered it, was made into the cor­ner­stone? And so once more do I warn you that, if you con­tinue to re­ject this gospel, pres­ently will the king­dom of God be taken away from you and be given to a peo­ple will­ing to re­ceive the good news and to bring forth the fruits of the spirit. And there is a mys­tery about this stone, see­ing that whoso falls upon it, while he is thereby bro­ken in pieces, shall be saved; but on whom­so­ever this stone falls, he will be ground to dust and his ashes scat­tered to the four winds.”