traditions

• religious t. are untrustworthy guides for living
• religious t. is imperfectly preserved record of experiences of God-knowing men

4:5.1Re­li­gious tra­di­tion is the im­per­fectly pre­served rec­ord of the ex­pe­ri­ences of the God-know­ing men of past ages, but such rec­ords are un­trust­wor­thy as guides for re­li­gious liv­ing or as the source of true in­for­ma­tion about the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Such an­cient be­liefs have been in­vari­ably al­tered by the fact that prim­i­tive man was a myth­maker.

• philosophy struggles for emancipation from

12:9.5Your re­li­gion is be­com­ing real be­cause it is emerg­ing from the slav­ery of fear and the bond­age of su­per­sti­tion. Your phi­los­o­phy strug­gles for eman­ci­pa­tion from dogma and tra­di­tion. Your sci­ence is en­gaged in the age­long con­test be­tween truth and er­ror while it fights for de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of ab­strac­tion, the slav­ery of math­e­mat­ics, and the rel­a­tive blind­ness of mech­a­nis­tic ma­te­ri­al­ism.

• compelling force of

51:6.5The con­tin­u­ing ex­is­tence of the Plan­e­tary Adam and Eve, to­gether with the pure-line nu­cleus of the vi­o­let race, im­parts that sta­bil­ity of growth to Edenic cul­ture by virtue of which it comes to act upon the civ­i­liza­tion of a world with the com­pelling force of tra­di­tion. In these im­mor­tal Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters we en­counter the last and the in­dis­pens­able link con­nect­ing God with man, bridg­ing the al­most in­fi­nite gulf be­tween the eter­nal Cre­ator and the low­est fi­nite per­son­al­i­ties of time. Here is a be­ing of high ori­gin who is phys­i­cal, ma­te­rial, even a sex crea­ture like Uran­tia mor­tals, one who can see and com­pre­hend the in­vis­i­ble Plan­e­tary Prince and in­ter­pret him to the mor­tal crea­tures of the realm, for the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters are able to see all of the lower or­ders of spirit be­ings; they vi­su­al­ize the Plan­e­tary Prince and his en­tire staff, vis­i­ble and in­vis­i­ble.

• produces stability but stifles initiative
• sentimentally link past with present

66:6.2Slav­ery to tra­di­tion pro­duces sta­bil­ity and co-op­er­a­tion by sen­ti­men­tally link­ing the past with the pres­ent, but it like­wise sti­fles ini­tia­tive and en­slaves the cre­ative pow­ers of the per­son­al­ity. The whole world was caught in the stale­mate of tra­di­tion-bound mores when the Cali­gas­tia one hun­dred ar­rived and be­gan the procla­ma­tion of the new gospel of in­di­vid­ual ini­tia­tive within the so­cial groups of that day. But this benef­i­cent rule was so soon in­ter­rupted that the races never have been wholly lib­er­ated from the slav­ery of cus­tom; fash­ion still un­duly dom­i­nates Uran­tia.

• custom establishes institutions of survival

69:1.31. The in­sti­tu­tions of self-main­te­nance. These in­sti­tu­tions em­brace those prac­tices grow­ing out of food hunger and its as­so­ci­ated in­stincts of self-preser­va­tion. They in­clude in­dus­try, prop­erty, war for gain, and all the reg­u­la­tive ma­chin­ery of so­ci­ety. Sooner or later the fear in­stinct fos­ters the es­tab­lish­ment of these in­sti­tu­tions of sur­vival by means of taboo, con­ven­tion, and re­li­gious sanc­tion. But fear, ig­no­rance, and su­per­sti­tion have played a promi­nent part in the early ori­gin and sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ment of all hu­man in­sti­tu­tions.

• ritual sanctifies custom; creates and perpetuates myths

90:5.2Rit­ual is the tech­nique of sanc­ti­fy­ing cus­tom; rit­ual cre­ates and per­pet­u­ates myths as well as con­tribut­ing to the preser­va­tion of so­cial and re­li­gious cus­toms. Again, rit­ual it­self has been fa­thered by myths. Rit­u­als are of­ten at first so­cial, later be­com­ing eco­nomic and fi­nally ac­quir­ing the sanc­tity and dig­nity of re­li­gious cer­e­mo­nial. Rit­ual may be per­sonal or group in prac­tice—or both—as il­lus­trated by prayer, danc­ing, and drama.

• pitiful to behold giant intellects in cultural bondage

101:7.4The great dif­fer­ence be­tween a re­li­gious and a non­re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy of liv­ing con­sists in the na­ture and level of rec­og­nized val­ues and in the ob­ject of loy­al­ties. There are four phases in the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy: Such an ex­pe­ri­ence may be­come merely con­for­ma­tive, re­signed to sub­mis­sion to tra­di­tion and au­thor­ity. Or it may be sat­is­fied with slight at­tain­ments, just enough to sta­bi­lize the daily liv­ing, and there­fore be­comes early ar­rested on such an ad­ven­ti­tious level. Such mor­tals be­lieve in let­ting well enough alone. A third group pro­gress to the level of log­i­cal in­tel­lec­tu­al­ity but there stag­nate in con­se­quence of cul­tural slav­ery. It is in­deed piti­ful to be­hold gi­ant in­tel­lects held so se­curely within the cruel grasp of cul­tural bond­age. It is equally pa­thetic to ob­serve those who trade their cul­tural bond­age for the ma­te­ri­al­is­tic fet­ters of a sci­ence, falsely so called. The fourth level of phi­los­o­phy at­tains free­dom from all con­ven­tional and tra­di­tional hand­i­caps and dares to think, act, and live hon­estly, loy­ally, fear­lessly, and truth­fully.

• Jesus warned against using t. to guide and control believers

140:8.26Je­sus knew men were dif­fer­ent, and he so taught his apos­tles. He con­stantly ex­horted them to re­frain from try­ing to mold the dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers ac­cord­ing to some set pat­tern. He sought to al­low each soul to de­velop in its own way, a per­fect­ing and sep­a­rate in­di­vid­ual be­fore God. In an­swer to one of Pe­ter’s many ques­tions, the Mas­ter said: “I want to set men free so that they can start out afresh as lit­tle chil­dren upon the new and bet­ter life.” Je­sus al­ways in­sisted that true good­ness must be un­con­scious, in be­stow­ing char­ity not al­low­ing the left hand to know what the right hand does.

• Jesus warned against using t. to guide and control believers

141:5.4Many times dur­ing the train­ing of the twelve Je­sus re­verted to this theme. Re­peat­edly he told them it was not his de­sire that those who be­lieved in him should be­come dog­ma­tized and stan­dard­ized in ac­cor­dance with the re­li­gious in­ter­pre­ta­tions of even good men. Again and again he warned his apos­tles against the for­mu­la­tion of creeds and the es­tab­lish­ment of tra­di­tions as a means of guid­ing and con­trol­ling be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom.

• Jesus disregarded superstitious t.

149:2.10As Je­sus min­gled with the peo­ple, they found him en­tirely free from the su­per­sti­tions of that day. He was free from re­li­gious prej­u­dices; he was never in­tol­er­ant. He had noth­ing in his heart re­sem­bling so­cial an­tag­o­nism. While he com­plied with the good in the re­li­gion of his fa­thers, he did not hes­i­tate to dis­re­gard man-made tra­di­tions of su­per­sti­tion and bond­age. He dared to teach that catas­tro­phes of na­ture, ac­ci­dents of time, and other calami­tous hap­pen­ings are not vis­i­ta­tions of di­vine judg­ments or mys­te­ri­ous dis­pen­sa­tions of Prov­i­dence. He de­nounced slav­ish de­vo­tion to mean­ing­less cer­e­mo­ni­als and ex­posed the fal­lacy of ma­te­ri­al­is­tic wor­ship. He boldly pro­claimed man’s spir­i­tual free­dom and dared to teach that mor­tals of the flesh are in­deed and in truth sons of the liv­ing God.

• safe refuge for fearful, halfhearted souls

155:5.11The re­li­gion of the spirit means ef­fort, strug­gle, con­flict, faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion, love, loy­alty, and prog­ress. The re­li­gion of the mind—the the­ol­ogy of au­thor­ity—re­quires lit­tle or none of these ex­er­tions from its for­mal be­liev­ers. Tra­di­tion is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fear­ful and half­hearted souls who in­stinc­tively shun the spirit strug­gles and men­tal un­cer­tain­ties as­so­ci­ated with those faith voy­ages of dar­ing ad­ven­ture out upon the high seas of un­ex­plored truth in search for the far­ther shores of spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties as they may be dis­cov­ered by the pro­gres­sive hu­man mind and ex­pe­ri­enced by the evolv­ing hu­man soul.

• no obligation to accept outworn

155:6.5While the re­li­gion of au­thor­ity may im­part a pres­ent feel­ing of set­tled se­cu­rity, you pay for such a tran­sient sat­is­fac­tion the price of the loss of your spir­i­tual free­dom and re­li­gious lib­erty. My Fa­ther does not re­quire of you as the price of en­ter­ing the king­dom of heaven that you should force your­self to sub­scribe to a be­lief in things which are spir­i­tu­ally re­pug­nant, un­holy, and un­truth­ful. It is not re­quired of you that your own sense of mercy, jus­tice, and truth should be out­raged by sub­mis­sion to an out­worn sys­tem of re­li­gious forms and cer­e­monies. The re­li­gion of the spirit leaves you for­ever free to fol­low the truth wher­ever the lead­ings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge—per­haps this spirit may have some­thing to im­part to this gen­er­a­tion which other gen­er­a­tions have re­fused to hear?

155:6.6Shame on those false re­li­gious teach­ers who would drag hun­gry souls back into the dim and dis­tant past and there leave them! And so are these un­for­tu­nate per­sons doomed to be­come fright­ened by ev­ery new dis­cov­ery, while they are dis­com­fited by ev­ery new rev­e­la­tion of truth. The prophet who said, “He will be kept in per­fect peace whose mind is stayed on God,” was not a mere in­tel­lec­tual be­liever in au­thor­i­ta­tive the­ol­ogy. This truth-know­ing hu­man had dis­cov­ered God; he was not merely talk­ing about God.

155:6.7I ad­mon­ish you to give up the prac­tice of al­ways quot­ing the proph­ets of old and prais­ing the heroes of Is­rael, and in­stead as­pire to be­come liv­ing proph­ets of the Most High and spir­i­tual heroes of the com­ing king­dom. To honor the God-know­ing lead­ers of the past may in­deed be worth while, but why, in so do­ing, should you sac­ri­fice the su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence of hu­man ex­is­tence: find­ing God for your­selves and know­ing him in your own souls?

• permit not reverence for t. to pervert understanding

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”

• oppressive and enslaving

175:1.8“This af­ter­noon my apos­tles stand here be­fore you in si­lence, but you shall soon hear their voices ring­ing out with the call to sal­va­tion and with the urge to unite with the heav­enly king­dom as the sons of the liv­ing God. And now I call to wit­ness these, my dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom, as well as the un­seen mes­sen­gers by their sides, that I have once more of­fered Is­rael and her rulers de­liv­er­ance and sal­va­tion. But you all be­hold how the Fa­ther’s mercy is slighted and how the mes­sen­gers of truth are re­jected. Nev­er­the­less, I ad­mon­ish you that these scribes and Phar­isees still sit in Moses’ seat, and there­fore, un­til the Most Highs who rule in the king­doms of men shall fi­nally over­throw this na­tion and de­stroy the place of these rulers, I bid you co-op­er­ate with these el­ders in Is­rael. You are not re­quired to unite with them in their plans to de­stroy the Son of Man, but in ev­ery­thing re­lated to the peace of Is­rael you are to be sub­ject to them. In all these mat­ters do what­so­ever they bid you and ob­serve the es­sen­tials of the law but do not pat­tern af­ter their evil works. Re­mem­ber, this is the sin of these rulers: They say that which is good, but they do it not. You well know how these lead­ers bind heavy bur­dens on your shoul­ders, bur­dens griev­ous to bear, and that they will not lift as much as one fin­ger to help you bear these weighty bur­dens. They have op­pressed you with cer­e­monies and en­slaved you by tra­di­tions.

• safe refuge for fearful, halfhearted souls

191:5.3“Peace be upon you. For a full week have I tar­ried that I might ap­pear again when you were all pres­ent to hear once more the com­mis­sion to go into all the world and preach this gospel of the king­dom. Again I tell you: As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have re­vealed the Fa­ther, so shall you re­veal the di­vine love, not merely with words, but in your daily liv­ing. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to pro­claim the joys of heaven but also to ex­hibit in your daily ex­pe­ri­ence these spirit re­al­i­ties of the di­vine life since you al­ready have eter­nal life, as the gift of God, through faith. When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here be­hind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all man­kind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a dis­agree­able ex­pe­ri­ence, but when you shall have been bap­tized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joy­ously go forth to meet the new ex­pe­ri­ences of pro­claim­ing the good news of eter­nal life in the king­dom of God. You may tarry here and in Gal­i­lee for a short sea­son while you re­cover from the shock of the tran­si­tion from the false se­cu­rity of the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion­al­ism to the new or­der of the au­thor­ity of facts, truth, and faith in the su­preme re­al­i­ties of liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Your mis­sion to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-re­veal­ing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall con­sist in the life which you will live among men—the ac­tual and liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of lov­ing men and serv­ing them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith re­veal your light to the world; let the rev­e­la­tion of truth open the eyes blinded by tra­di­tion; let your lov­ing ser­vice ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroy the prej­u­dice en­gen­dered by ig­no­rance. By so draw­ing close to your fel­low men in un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and with un­selfish de­vo­tion, you will lead them into a sav­ing knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s love. The Jews have ex­tolled good­ness; the Greeks have ex­alted beauty; the Hin­dus preach de­vo­tion; the far­away as­cetics teach rev­er­ence; the Ro­mans de­mand loy­alty; but I re­quire of my dis­ci­ples life, even a life of lov­ing ser­vice for your broth­ers in the flesh.”