terrestrial escape

49:6.1All of the dif­fer­ing phys­i­cal types and plan­e­tary se­ries of mor­tals alike en­joy the min­istry of Thought Ad­justers, guard­ian an­gels, and the var­i­ous or­ders of the mes­sen­ger hosts of the In­fi­nite Spirit. All alike are lib­er­ated from the bonds of flesh by the eman­ci­pa­tion of nat­u­ral death, and all alike go thence to the mor­ontia worlds of spir­i­tual evo­lu­tion and mind prog­ress.

49:6.2From time to time, on mo­tion of the plan­e­tary au­thor­i­ties or the sys­tem rulers, spe­cial res­ur­rec­tions of the sleep­ing sur­vivors are con­ducted. Such res­ur­rec­tions oc­cur at least ev­ery mil­len­nium of plan­e­tary time, when not all but “many of those who sleep in the dust awake.” These spe­cial res­ur­rec­tions are the oc­ca­sion for mo­bi­liz­ing spe­cial groups of as­cend­ers for spe­cific ser­vice in the lo­cal uni­verse plan of mor­tal as­cen­sion. There are both prac­ti­cal rea­sons and sen­ti­men­tal as­so­ci­a­tions con­nected with these spe­cial res­ur­rec­tions.

49:6.3Through­out the ear­lier ages of an in­hab­ited world, many are called to the man­sion spheres at the spe­cial and the mil­len­nial res­ur­rec­tions, but most sur­vivors are reper­son­al­ized at the in­au­gu­ra­tion of a new dis­pen­sa­tion as­so­ci­ated with the ad­vent of a di­vine Son of plan­e­tary ser­vice.

49:6.41. Mor­tals of the dis­pen­sa­tional or group or­der of sur­vival. With the ar­rival of the first Ad­juster on an in­hab­ited world the guard­ian ser­a­phim also make their ap­pear­ance; they are in­dis­pens­able to ter­res­trial es­cape. Through­out the life-lapse pe­riod of the sleep­ing sur­vivors the spir­i­tual val­ues and eter­nal re­al­i­ties of their newly evolved and im­mor­tal souls are held as a sa­cred trust by the per­sonal or by the group guard­ian ser­a­phim.

49:6.5The group guard­i­ans of as­sign­ment to the sleep­ing sur­vivors al­ways func­tion with the judg­ment Sons on their world ad­vents. “He shall send his an­gels, and they shall gather to­gether his elect from the four winds.” With each ser­a­phim of as­sign­ment to the reper­son­al­iza­tion of a sleep­ing mor­tal there func­tions the re­turned Ad­juster, the same im­mor­tal Fa­ther frag­ment that lived in him dur­ing the days in the flesh, and thus is iden­tity re­stored and per­son­al­ity res­ur­rected. Dur­ing the sleep of their sub­jects these wait­ing Ad­justers serve on Di­vin­ing­ton; they never in­dwell an­other mor­tal mind in this in­terim.

49:6.6While the older worlds of mor­tal ex­is­tence har­bor those highly de­vel­oped and ex­qui­sitely spir­i­tual types of hu­man be­ings who are vir­tu­ally ex­empt from the mor­ontia life, the ear­lier ages of the an­i­mal-ori­gin races are char­ac­ter­ized by prim­i­tive mor­tals who are so im­ma­ture that fu­sion with their Ad­justers is im­pos­si­ble. The reawak­en­ing of these mor­tals is ac­com­plished by the guard­ian ser­a­phim in con­junc­tion with an in­di­vid­u­al­ized por­tion of the im­mor­tal spirit of the Third Source and Cen­ter.

49:6.7Thus are the sleep­ing sur­vivors of a plan­e­tary age reper­son­al­ized in the dis­pen­sa­tional roll calls. But with re­gard to the non­salv­able per­son­al­i­ties of a realm, no im­mor­tal spirit is pres­ent to func­tion with the group guard­i­ans of des­tiny, and this con­sti­tutes ces­sa­tion of crea­ture ex­is­tence. While some of your rec­ords have pic­tured these events as tak­ing place on the plan­ets of mor­tal death, they all re­ally oc­cur on the man­sion worlds.

49:6.82. Mor­tals of the in­di­vid­ual or­ders of as­cen­sion. The in­di­vid­ual prog­ress of hu­man be­ings is mea­sured by their suc­ces­sive at­tain­ment and traver­sal (mas­tery) of the seven cos­mic cir­cles. These cir­cles of mor­tal pro­gres­sion are lev­els of as­so­ci­ated in­tel­lec­tual, so­cial, spir­i­tual, and cos­mic-in­sight val­ues. Start­ing out in the sev­enth cir­cle, mor­tals strive for the first, and all who have at­tained the third im­me­di­ately have per­sonal guard­i­ans of des­tiny as­signed to them. These mor­tals may be reper­son­al­ized in the mor­ontia life in­de­pen­dent of dis­pen­sa­tional or other ad­ju­di­ca­tions.

49:6.9Through­out the ear­lier ages of an evo­lu­tion­ary world, few mor­tals go to judg­ment on the third day. But as the ages pass, more and more the per­sonal guard­i­ans of des­tiny are as­signed to the ad­vanc­ing mor­tals, and thus in­creas­ing num­bers of these evolv­ing crea­tures are reper­son­al­ized on the first man­sion world on the third day af­ter nat­u­ral death. On such oc­ca­sions the re­turn of the Ad­juster sig­nal­izes the awak­en­ing of the hu­man soul, and this is the reper­son­al­iza­tion of the dead just as lit­er­ally as when the en masse roll is called at the end of a dis­pen­sa­tion on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

49:6.10There are three groups of in­di­vid­ual as­cend­ers: The less ad­vanced land on the ini­tial or first man­sion world. The more ad­vanced group may take up the mor­ontia ca­reer on any of the in­ter­me­di­ate man­sion worlds in ac­cor­dance with pre­vi­ous plan­e­tary pro­gres­sion. The most ad­vanced of these or­ders re­ally be­gin their mor­ontia ex­pe­ri­ence on the sev­enth man­sion world.

49:6.113. Mor­tals of the pro­ba­tion­ary-de­pen­dent or­ders of as­cen­sion. The ar­rival of an Ad­juster con­sti­tutes iden­tity in the eyes of the uni­verse, and all in­dwelt be­ings are on the roll calls of jus­tice. But tem­po­ral life on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds is un­cer­tain, and many die in youth be­fore choos­ing the Par­a­dise ca­reer. Such Ad­juster-in­dwelt chil­dren and youths fol­low the par­ent of most ad­vanced spir­i­tual sta­tus, thus go­ing to the sys­tem fi­nal­i­ter world (the pro­ba­tion­ary nurs­ery) on the third day, at a spe­cial res­ur­rec­tion, or at the reg­u­lar mil­len­nial and dis­pen­sa­tional roll calls.

49:6.12Chil­dren who die when too young to have Thought Ad­justers are reper­son­al­ized on the fi­nal­i­ter world of the lo­cal sys­tems con­comi­tant with the ar­rival of ei­ther par­ent on the man­sion worlds. A child ac­quires phys­i­cal en­tity at mor­tal birth, but in the mat­ter of sur­vival all Ad­juster­less chil­dren are reck­oned as still at­tached to their par­ents.

49:6.13In due course Thought Ad­justers come to in­dwell these lit­tle ones, while the se­raphic min­istry to both groups of the pro­ba­tion­ary-de­pen­dent or­ders of sur­vival is in gen­eral sim­i­lar to that of the more ad­vanced par­ent or is equiv­a­lent to that of the par­ent in case only one sur­vives. Those at­tain­ing the third cir­cle, re­gard­less of the sta­tus of their par­ents, are ac­corded per­sonal guard­i­ans.

49:6.14Sim­i­lar pro­ba­tion nurs­eries are main­tained on the fi­nal­i­ter spheres of the con­stel­la­tion and the uni­verse head­quar­ters for the Ad­juster­less chil­dren of the pri­mary and sec­ondary mod­i­fied or­ders of as­cend­ers.

49:6.154. Mor­tals of the sec­ondary mod­i­fied or­ders of as­cen­sion. These are the pro­gres­sive hu­man be­ings of the in­ter­me­di­ate evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. As a rule they are not im­mune to nat­u­ral death, but they are ex­empt from pass­ing through the seven man­sion worlds.

49:6.16The less per­fected group reawaken on the head­quar­ters of their lo­cal sys­tem, pass­ing by only the man­sion worlds. The in­ter­me­di­ate group go to the con­stel­la­tion train­ing worlds; they pass by the en­tire mor­ontia regime of the lo­cal sys­tem. Still far­ther on in the plan­e­tary ages of spir­i­tual striv­ing, many sur­vivors awaken on the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters and there be­gin the Par­a­dise as­cent.

49:6.17But be­fore any of these groups may go for­ward, they must jour­ney back as in­struc­tors to the worlds they missed, gain­ing many ex­pe­ri­ences as teach­ers in those realms which they passed by as stu­dents. They all sub­se­quently pro­ceed to Par­a­dise by the or­dained routes of mor­tal pro­gres­sion.

49:6.185. Mor­tals of the pri­mary mod­i­fied or­der of as­cen­sion. These mor­tals be­long to the Ad­juster-fused type of evo­lu­tion­ary life, but they are most of­ten rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the fi­nal phases of hu­man de­vel­op­ment on an evolv­ing world. These glo­ri­fied be­ings are ex­empt from pass­ing through the por­tals of death; they are sub­mit­ted to Son seizure; they are trans­lated from among the liv­ing and ap­pear im­me­di­ately in the pres­ence of the Sov­er­eign Son on the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verse.

49:6.19These are the mor­tals who fuse with their Ad­justers dur­ing mor­tal life, and such Ad­juster-fused per­son­al­i­ties tra­verse space freely be­fore be­ing clothed with mor­ontia forms. These fused souls go by di­rect Ad­juster tran­sit to the res­ur­rec­tion halls of the higher mor­ontia spheres, where they re­ceive their ini­tial mor­ontia in­vesti­ture just as do all other mor­tals ar­riv­ing from the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

49:6.20This pri­mary mod­i­fied or­der of mor­tal as­cen­sion may ap­ply to in­di­vid­u­als in any of the plan­e­tary se­ries from the low­est to the high­est stages of the Ad­juster-fu­sion worlds, but it more fre­quently func­tions on the older of these spheres af­ter they have re­ceived the ben­e­fits of nu­mer­ous so­journs of the di­vine Sons.

49:6.21With the es­tab­lish­ment of the plan­e­tary era of light and life, many go to the uni­verse mor­ontia worlds by the pri­mary mod­i­fied or­der of trans­la­tion. Fur­ther along in the ad­vanced stages of set­tled ex­is­tence, when the ma­jor­ity of the mor­tals leav­ing a realm are em­braced in this class, the planet is re­garded as be­long­ing to this se­ries. Nat­u­ral death be­comes de­creas­ingly fre­quent on these spheres long set­tled in light and life.

49:6.22[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of the Je­ru­sem School of Plan­e­tary Ad­min­is­tra­tion.]

55:2.1Nat­u­ral, phys­i­cal death is not a mor­tal in­evitabil­ity. The ma­jor­ity of ad­vanced evo­lu­tion­ary be­ings, cit­i­zens on worlds ex­ist­ing in the fi­nal era of light and life, do not die; they are trans­lated di­rectly from the life in the flesh to the mor­ontia ex­is­tence.

55:2.2This ex­pe­ri­ence of trans­la­tion from the ma­te­rial life to the mor­ontia state—fu­sion of the im­mor­tal soul with the in­dwelling Ad­juster—in­creases in fre­quency com­men­su­rate with the evo­lu­tion­ary prog­ress of the planet. At first only a few mor­tals in each age at­tain trans­la­tion lev­els of spir­i­tual prog­ress, but with the on­set of the suc­ces­sive ages of the Teacher Sons, more and more Ad­juster fu­sions oc­cur be­fore the ter­mi­na­tion of the length­en­ing lives of these pro­gress­ing mor­tals; and by the time of the ter­mi­nal mis­sion of the Teacher Sons, ap­prox­i­mately one quar­ter of these su­perb mor­tals are ex­empt from nat­u­ral death.

55:2.3Far­ther along in the era of light and life the mid­way crea­tures or their as­so­ciates sense the ap­proach­ing sta­tus of prob­a­ble soul-Ad­juster union and sig­nify this to the des­tiny guard­i­ans, who in turn com­mu­ni­cate these mat­ters to the fi­nal­i­ter group un­der whose ju­ris­dic­tion this mor­tal may be func­tion­ing; then there is is­sued the sum­mons of the Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign for such a mor­tal to re­sign all plan­e­tary du­ties, bid farewell to the world of his ori­gin, and re­pair to the in­ner tem­ple of the Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign, there to await mor­ontia tran­sit, the trans­la­tion flash, from the ma­te­rial do­main of evo­lu­tion to the mor­ontia level of pre­spirit pro­gres­sion.

55:2.4When the fam­ily, friends, and work­ing group of such a fu­sion can­di­date have for­gath­ered in the mor­ontia tem­ple, they are dis­tributed around the cen­tral stage whereon the fu­sion can­di­dates are rest­ing, mean­time freely con­vers­ing with their as­sem­bled friends. A cir­cle of in­ter­ven­ing ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties is ar­ranged to pro­tect the ma­te­rial mor­tals from the ac­tion of the en­er­gies man­i­fest at the in­stant of the “life flash” which de­liv­ers the as­cen­sion can­di­date from the bonds of ma­te­rial flesh, thereby do­ing for such an evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tal ev­ery­thing that nat­u­ral death does for those who are thereby de­liv­ered from the flesh.

55:2.5Many fu­sion can­di­dates may be as­sem­bled in the spa­cious tem­ple at the same time. And what a beau­ti­ful oc­ca­sion when mor­tals thus for­gather to wit­ness the as­cen­sion of their loved ones in spir­i­tual flames, and what a con­trast to those ear­lier ages when mor­tals must com­mit their dead to the em­brace of the ter­res­trial el­e­ments! The scenes of weep­ing and wail­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of ear­lier epochs of hu­man evo­lu­tion are now re­placed by ec­static joy and the sub­limest en­thu­si­asm as these God-know­ing mor­tals bid their loved ones a tran­sient farewell as they are re­moved from their ma­te­rial as­so­ci­a­tions by the spir­i­tual fires of con­sum­ing grandeur and as­cend­ing glory. On worlds set­tled in light and life, “fu­ner­als” are oc­ca­sions of su­preme joy, pro­found sat­is­fac­tion, and in­ex­press­ible hope.

55:2.6The souls of these pro­gress­ing mor­tals are in­creas­ingly filled with faith, hope, and as­sur­ance. The spirit per­me­at­ing those gath­ered around the trans­la­tion shrine re­sem­bles that of the joy­ful friends and rel­a­tives who might as­sem­ble at a grad­u­at­ing ex­er­cise for one of their group, or who might come to­gether to wit­ness the con­fer­ring of some great honor upon one of their num­ber. And it would be de­cid­edly help­ful if less ad­vanced mor­tals could only learn to view nat­u­ral death with some­thing of this same cheer­ful­ness and light­heart­ed­ness.

55:2.7Mor­tal ob­servers can see noth­ing of their trans­lated as­so­ciates sub­se­quent to the fu­sion flash. Such trans­lated souls pro­ceed by Ad­juster tran­sit di­rect to the res­ur­rec­tion hall of the ap­pro­pri­ate mor­ontia-train­ing world. These trans­ac­tions con­cerned with the trans­la­tion of liv­ing hu­man be­ings to the mor­ontia world are super­vised by an arch­an­gel who was as­signed to such a world on the day when it was first set­tled in light and life.

55:2.8By the time a world at­tains the fourth stage of light and life, more than half the mor­tals leave the planet by trans­la­tion from among the liv­ing. Such di­min­ish­ment of death con­tin­ues on and on, but I know of no sys­tem whose in­hab­ited worlds, even though long set­tled in life, are en­tirely free from nat­u­ral death as the tech­nique of es­cape from the bonds of flesh. And un­til such a high state of plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion is uni­formly at­tained, the mor­ontia-train­ing worlds of the lo­cal uni­verse must con­tinue in ser­vice as ed­u­ca­tional and cul­tural spheres for the evolv­ing mor­ontia pro­gres­sors. The elim­i­na­tion of death is the­o­ret­i­cally pos­si­ble, but it has not yet oc­curred ac­cord­ing to my ob­ser­va­tion. Per­haps such a sta­tus may be at­tained dur­ing the far­away stretches of the suc­ceed­ing epochs of the sev­enth stage of set­tled plan­e­tary life.

55:2.9The trans­lated souls of the flow­er­ing ages of the set­tled spheres do not pass through the man­sion worlds. Nei­ther do they so­journ, as stu­dents, on the mor­ontia worlds of the sys­tem or con­stel­la­tion. They do not pass through any of the ear­lier phases of mor­ontia life. They are the only as­cend­ing mor­tals who so nearly es­cape the mor­ontia tran­si­tion from ma­te­rial ex­is­tence to semispirit sta­tus. The ini­tial ex­pe­ri­ence of such Son-seized mor­tals in the as­cen­sion ca­reer is in the ser­vices of the pro­gres­sion worlds of the uni­verse head­quar­ters. And from these study worlds of Sal­ving­ton they go back as teach­ers to the very worlds they passed by, sub­se­quently go­ing on in­ward to Par­a­dise by the es­tab­lished route of mor­tal as­cen­sion.

55:2.10Could you but visit a planet in an ad­vanced stage of de­vel­op­ment, you would quickly grasp the rea­sons for pro­vid­ing for the dif­fer­en­tial re­cep­tion of as­cend­ing mor­tals on the man­sion and higher mor­ontia worlds. You would read­ily un­der­stand that be­ings pass­ing on from such highly evolved spheres are pre­pared to re­sume their Par­a­dise as­cent far in ad­vance of the av­er­age mor­tal ar­riv­ing from a dis­or­dered and back­ward world like Uran­tia.

55:2.11No mat­ter from what level of plan­e­tary at­tain­ment hu­man be­ings may as­cend to the mor­ontia worlds, the seven man­sion spheres af­ford them am­ple op­por­tu­nity to gain in ex­pe­ri­ence as teacher-stu­dents all of ev­ery­thing which they failed to pass through be­cause of the ad­vanced sta­tus of their na­tive plan­ets.

55:2.12The uni­verse is un­fail­ing in the ap­pli­ca­tion of these equal­iz­ing tech­niques de­signed to in­sure that no as­cender shall be de­prived of aught which is es­sen­tial to his as­cen­sion ex­pe­ri­ence.