Vorondadek Sons

35:5.1Af­ter the cre­ation of the per­sonal aids and the first group of the ver­sa­tile Mel­chiz­e­deks, the Cre­ator Son and the lo­cal uni­verse Cre­ative Spirit planned for, and brought into ex­is­tence, the sec­ond great and di­verse or­der of uni­verse son­ship, the Voron­dadeks. They are more gen­er­ally known as Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers be­cause a Son of this or­der is uni­formly found at the head of each con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ment in ev­ery lo­cal uni­verse.

35:5.2The num­ber of Voron­dadeks varies in each lo­cal uni­verse, just one mil­lion be­ing the re­corded num­ber in Neb­a­don. These Sons, like their co-or­di­nates, the Mel­chiz­e­deks, pos­sess no power of re­pro­duc­tion. There ex­ists no known method whereby they can in­crease their num­bers.

35:5.3In many re­spects these Sons are a self-gov­ern­ing body; as in­di­vid­u­als and as groups, even as a whole, they are largely self-de­ter­mi­na­tive, much as are the Mel­chiz­e­deks, but Voron­dadeks do not func­tion through such a wide range of ac­tiv­i­ties. They do not equal their Mel­chiz­e­dek breth­ren in bril­liant ver­sa­til­ity, but they are even more re­li­able and ef­fi­cient as rulers and farsee­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors. Nei­ther are they quite the ad­min­is­tra­tive peers of their sub­or­di­nates, the La­non­an­dek Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, but they ex­cel all or­ders of uni­verse son­ship in sta­bil­ity of pur­pose and in di­vin­ity of judg­ment.

35:5.4Al­though the de­ci­sions and rul­ings of this or­der of Sons are al­ways in ac­cor­dance with the spirit of di­vine son­ship and in har­mony with the poli­cies of the Cre­ator Son, they have been cited for er­ror to the Cre­ator Son, and in de­tails of tech­nique their de­ci­sions have some­times been re­versed on ap­peal to the su­pe­rior tri­bu­nals of the uni­verse. But these Sons rarely fall into er­ror, and they have never gone into re­bel­lion; never in all the his­tory of Neb­a­don has a Vo­ron­da­dek been found in con­tempt of the uni­verse gov­ern­ment.

35:5.5The ser­vice of the Voron­dadeks in the lo­cal uni­verses is ex­ten­sive and var­ied. They serve as am­bas­sadors to other uni­verses and as con­suls rep­re­sent­ing con­stel­la­tions within their na­tive uni­verse. Of all or­ders of lo­cal uni­verse son­ship they are the most of­ten in­trusted with the full del­e­ga­tion of sov­er­eign pow­ers to be ex­er­cised in crit­i­cal uni­verse sit­u­a­tions.

35:5.6On those worlds seg­re­gated in spir­i­tual dark­ness, those spheres which have, through re­bel­lion and de­fault, suf­fered plan­e­tary iso­la­tion, an ob­server Vo­ron­da­dek is usu­ally pres­ent pend­ing the restora­tion of nor­mal sta­tus. In cer­tain emer­gen­cies this Most High ob­server could ex­er­cise ab­so­lute and ar­bi­trary au­thor­ity over ev­ery ce­les­tial be­ing as­signed to that planet. It is of rec­ord on Sal­ving­ton that the Voron­dadeks have some­times ex­er­cised such au­thor­ity as Most High re­gents of such plan­ets. And this has also been true even of in­hab­ited worlds that were un­touched by re­bel­lion.

35:5.7Of­ten a corps of twelve or more Vo­ron­da­dek Sons sits en banc as a high court of re­view and ap­peal con­cern­ing spe­cial cases in­volv­ing the sta­tus of a planet or a sys­tem. But their work more largely per­tains to the leg­isla­tive func­tions in­dige­nous to the con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ments. As a re­sult of all these ser­vices, the Vo­ron­da­dek Sons have be­come the his­to­ri­ans of the lo­cal uni­verses; they are per­son­ally fa­mil­iar with all the po­lit­i­cal strug­gles and the so­cial up­heavals of the in­hab­ited worlds.

35:6.1At least three Voron­dadeks are as­signed to the ruler­ship of each of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions of a lo­cal uni­verse. These Sons are se­lected by the Cre­ator Son and are com­mis­sioned by Ga­briel as the Most Highs of the con­stel­la­tions for ser­vice dur­ing one dekamil­len­nium—10,000 stan­dard years, about 50,000 years of Uran­tia time. The reign­ing Most High, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, has two as­so­ciates, a se­nior and a ju­nior. At each change of ad­min­is­tra­tion the se­nior as­so­ciate be­comes the head of the gov­ern­ment, the ju­nior as­sumes the du­ties of the se­nior, while the un­as­signed Voron­dadeks res­i­dent on the Sal­ving­ton worlds nom­i­nate one of their num­ber as can­di­date for se­lec­tion to as­sume the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of ju­nior as­so­ciate. Thus each of the Most High rulers, in ac­cor­dance with pres­ent pol­icy, has a pe­riod of ser­vice on the head­quar­ters of a con­stel­la­tion of three dekamil­len­ni­ums, about 150,000 Uran­tia years.

35:6.2The one hun­dred Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, the ac­tual pre­sid­ing heads of the con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ments, con­sti­tute the su­preme ad­vi­sory cab­i­net of the Cre­ator Son. This coun­cil is in fre­quent ses­sion at uni­verse head­quar­ters and is un­lim­ited in the scope and range of its de­lib­er­a­tions but is chiefly con­cerned with the wel­fare of the con­stel­la­tions and with the uni­fi­ca­tion of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the en­tire lo­cal uni­verse.

35:6.3When a Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther is in at­ten­dance upon du­ties at the uni­verse head­quar­ters, as he fre­quently is, the se­nior as­so­ciate be­comes act­ing di­rec­tor of con­stel­la­tion af­fairs. The nor­mal func­tion of the se­nior as­so­ciate is the over­sight of spir­i­tual af­fairs, while the ju­nior as­so­ciate is per­son­ally oc­cu­pied with the phys­i­cal wel­fare of the con­stel­la­tion. No ma­jor pol­icy, how­ever, is ever car­ried out in a con­stel­la­tion un­less all three of the Most Highs are agreed upon all the de­tails of its ex­e­cu­tion.

35:6.4The en­tire mech­a­nism of spirit in­tel­li­gence and com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels is at the dis­posal of the con­stel­la­tion Most Highs. They are in per­fect touch with their su­pe­ri­ors on Sal­ving­ton and with their di­rect sub­or­di­nates, the sov­er­eigns of the lo­cal sys­tems. They fre­quently con­vene in coun­cil with these Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns to de­lib­er­ate upon the state of the con­stel­la­tion.

35:6.5The Most Highs sur­round them­selves with a corps of coun­selors, which varies in num­ber and per­son­nel from time to time in ac­cor­dance with the pres­ence of the var­i­ous groups at con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters and also as the lo­cal re­quire­ments vary. Dur­ing times of stress they may ask for, and will quickly re­ceive, ad­di­tional Sons of the Vo­ron­da­dek or­der to as­sist with the ad­min­is­tra­tive work. Nor­la­ti­adek, your own con­stel­la­tion, is at pres­ent ad­min­is­tered by twelve Vo­ron­da­dek Sons.

109:7.7When the plan­e­tary Vo­ron­da­dek ob­server of Uran­tia—the Most High cus­to­dian who not long since as­sumed an emer­gency re­gency of your world—as­serted his au­thor­ity in the pres­ence of the res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral, he be­gan his emer­gency ad­min­is­tra­tion of Uran­tia with a full staff of his own choos­ing. He im­me­di­ately as­signed to all his as­so­ciates and as­sis­tants their plan­e­tary du­ties. But he did not choose the three Per­son­al­ized Ad­justers who ap­peared in his pres­ence the in­stant he as­sumed the re­gency. He did not even know they would thus ap­pear, for they did not so man­i­fest their di­vine pres­ence at the time of a pre­vi­ous re­gency. And the Most High re­gent did not as­sign ser­vice or des­ig­nate du­ties for these vol­un­teer Per­son­al­ized Ad­justers. Nev­er­the­less, these three om­niper­sonal be­ings were among the most ac­tive of the nu­mer­ous or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings then serv­ing on Uran­tia.

114:3.5The super­ma­te­rial gov­ern­ment of Uran­tia does not main­tain a very close or­ganic re­la­tion­ship with the higher units of the lo­cal uni­verse. In a way, the res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral rep­re­sents Sal­ving­ton as well as Je­ru­sem since he acts on be­half of the twenty-four coun­selors, who are di­rectly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mi­chael and Ga­briel. And be­ing a Je­ru­sem cit­i­zen, the plan­e­tary gov­er­nor can func­tion as a spokesman for the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign. The con­stel­la­tion au­thor­i­ties are rep­re­sented di­rectly by a Vo­ron­da­dek Son, the Eden­tia ob­server.

114:4.1The sov­er­eignty of Uran­tia is fur­ther com­pli­cated by the one­time ar­bi­trary seizure of plan­e­tary au­thor­ity by the gov­ern­ment of Nor­la­ti­adek shortly af­ter the plan­e­tary re­bel­lion. There is still res­i­dent on Uran­tia a Vo­ron­da­dek Son, an ob­server for the Most Highs of Eden­tia and, in the ab­sence of di­rect ac­tion by Mi­chael, trus­tee of plan­e­tary sov­er­eignty. The pres­ent Most High ob­server (and some­time re­gent) is the twenty-third thus to serve on Uran­tia.

114:4.2There are cer­tain groups of plan­e­tary prob­lems which are still un­der the con­trol of the Most Highs of Eden­tia, ju­ris­dic­tion over them hav­ing been seized at the time of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. Au­thor­ity in these mat­ters is ex­er­cised by a Vo­ron­da­dek Son, the Nor­la­ti­adek ob­server, who main­tains very close ad­vi­sory re­la­tions with the plan­e­tary super­vi­sors. The race com­mis­sion­ers are very ac­tive on Uran­tia, and their var­i­ous group chiefs are in­for­mally at­tached to the res­i­dent Vo­ron­da­dek ob­server, who acts as their ad­vi­sory di­rec­tor.

114:4.3In a cri­sis the ac­tual and sov­er­eign head of the gov­ern­ment, ex­cept­ing in cer­tain purely spir­i­tual mat­ters, would be this Vo­ron­da­dek Son of Eden­tia now on ob­ser­va­tion duty. (In these ex­clu­sively spir­i­tual prob­lems and in cer­tain purely per­sonal mat­ters, the su­preme au­thor­ity seems to be vested in the com­mand­ing arch­an­gel at­tached to the di­vi­sional head­quar­ters of that or­der which was re­cently es­tab­lished on Uran­tia.)

114:4.4A Most High ob­server is em­pow­ered, at his dis­cre­tion, to seize the plan­e­tary gov­ern­ment in times of grave plan­e­tary crises, and it is of rec­ord that this has hap­pened thirty-three times in the his­tory of Uran­tia. At such times the Most High ob­server func­tions as the Most High re­gent, ex­er­cis­ing un­ques­tioned au­thor­ity over all min­is­ters and ad­min­is­tra­tors res­i­dent on the planet ex­cept­ing only the di­vi­sional or­ga­ni­za­tion of the arch­an­gels.

114:4.5Vo­ron­da­dek re­gen­cies are not pe­cu­liar to re­bel­lion-iso­lated plan­ets, for the Most Highs may in­ter­vene at any time in the af­fairs of the in­hab­ited worlds, in­ter­pos­ing the su­pe­rior wis­dom of the con­stel­la­tion rulers in the af­fairs of the king­doms of men.

43:5.2The pres­ent gov­ern­ment of the con­stel­la­tion, how­ever, has been ex­panded to in­clude twelve Sons of the Vo­ron­da­dek or­der. These twelve are as fol­lows:

43:5.31. The Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther. The pres­ent Most High ruler of Nor­la­ti­adek is num­ber 617,318 of the Vo­ron­da­dek se­ries of Neb­a­don. He saw ser­vice in many con­stel­la­tions through­out our lo­cal uni­verse be­fore tak­ing up his Eden­tia re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

43:5.42. The se­nior Most High as­so­ciate.

43:5.53. The ju­nior Most High as­so­ciate.

43:5.64. The Most High ad­viser, the per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mi­chael since his at­tain­ment of the sta­tus of a Mas­ter Son.

43:5.75. The Most High ex­ec­u­tive, the per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Ga­briel sta­tioned on Eden­tia ever since the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion.

43:5.86. The Most High chief of plan­e­tary ob­servers, the di­rec­tor of the Vo­ron­da­dek ob­servers sta­tioned on the iso­lated worlds of Sa­ta­nia.

43:5.97. The Most High ref­eree, the Vo­ron­da­dek Son in­trusted with the duty of ad­just­ing all dif­fi­cul­ties con­se­quen­tial to re­bel­lion within the con­stel­la­tion.

43:5.108. The Most High emer­gency ad­min­is­tra­tor, the Vo­ron­da­dek Son charged with the task of adapt­ing the emer­gency en­act­ments of the Nor­la­ti­adek leg­is­la­ture to the re­bel­lion-iso­lated worlds of Sa­ta­nia.

43:5.119. The Most High me­di­a­tor, the Vo­ron­da­dek Son as­signed to har­mo­nize the spe­cial be­stowal ad­just­ments on Uran­tia with the rou­tine ad­min­is­tra­tion of the con­stel­la­tion. The pres­ence of cer­tain arch­an­gel ac­tiv­i­ties and nu­mer­ous other ir­reg­u­lar min­is­tra­tions on Uran­tia, to­gether with the spe­cial ac­tiv­i­ties of the Bril­liant Evening Stars on Je­ru­sem, ne­ces­si­tates the func­tion­ing of this Son.

43:5.1210. The Most High judge-ad­vo­cate, the head of the emer­gency tri­bu­nal de­voted to the ad­just­ment of the spe­cial prob­lems of Nor­la­ti­adek grow­ing out of the con­fu­sion con­se­quent upon the Sa­ta­nia re­bel­lion.

43:5.1311. The Most High li­ai­son, the Vo­ron­da­dek Son at­tached to the Eden­tia rulers but com­mis­sioned as a spe­cial coun­selor with the Faith­ful of Days re­gard­ing the best course to pur­sue in the man­age­ment of prob­lems per­tain­ing to re­bel­lion and crea­ture dis­loy­alty.

43:5.1412. The Most High di­rec­tor, the pres­i­dent of the emer­gency coun­cil of Eden­tia. All per­son­al­i­ties as­signed to Nor­la­ti­adek be­cause of the Sa­ta­nia up­heaval con­sti­tute the emer­gency coun­cil, and their pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer is a Vo­ron­da­dek Son of ex­traor­di­nary ex­pe­ri­ence.

43:5.15And this takes no ac­count of the nu­mer­ous Voron­dadeks, en­voys of Neb­a­don con­stel­la­tions, and oth­ers who are also res­i­dent on Eden­tia.

20:1.10Mel­chiz­e­deks are the joint off­spring of a lo­cal uni­verse Cre­ator Son, Cre­ative Spirit, and Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek. Both Voron­dadeks and La­non­an­deks are brought into be­ing by a Cre­ator Son and his Cre­ative Spirit as­so­ciate. Voron­dadeks are best known as the Most Highs, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers; La­non­an­deks as Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns and as Plan­e­tary Princes. The three­fold or­der of Life Car­ri­ers is brought into be­ing by a Cre­ator Son and Cre­ative Spirit as­so­ci­ated with one of the three An­cients of Days of the super­uni­verse of ju­ris­dic­tion. But the na­tures and ac­tiv­i­ties of these Lo­cal Uni­verse Sons of God are more prop­erly por­trayed in those pa­pers deal­ing with the af­fairs of the lo­cal cre­ations.

43:3.1The rulers of the con­stel­la­tions are of the Vo­ron­da­dek or­der of lo­cal uni­verse son­ship. When com­mis­sioned to ac­tive duty in the uni­verse as con­stel­la­tion rulers or oth­er­wise, these Sons are known as the Most Highs since they em­body the high­est ad­min­is­tra­tive wis­dom, cou­pled with the most farsee­ing and in­tel­li­gent loy­alty, of all the or­ders of the Lo­cal Uni­verse Sons of God. Their per­sonal in­tegrity and their group loy­alty have never been ques­tioned; no dis­af­fec­tion of the Vo­ron­da­dek Sons has ever oc­curred in Neb­a­don.

35:7.1The sec­ond group of seven worlds in the cir­cuit of sev­enty pri­mary spheres sur­round­ing Sal­ving­ton com­prise the Vo­ron­da­dek plan­ets. Each of these spheres, with its six en­cir­cling satel­lites, is de­voted to a spe­cial phase of Vo­ron­da­dek ac­tiv­i­ties. On these forty-nine realms the as­cend­ing mor­tals se­cure the acme of their ed­u­ca­tion re­spect­ing uni­verse leg­is­la­tion.

35:7.2The as­cend­ing mor­tals have ob­served the leg­isla­tive as­sem­blies as they func­tioned on the head­quar­ters worlds of the con­stel­la­tions, but here on these Vo­ron­da­dek worlds they par­tic­i­pate in the en­act­ment of the ac­tual gen­eral leg­is­la­tion of the lo­cal uni­verse un­der the tute­lage of the se­nior Voron­dadeks. Such en­act­ments are de­signed to co-or­di­nate the var­ied pro­nounce­ments of the au­ton­o­mous leg­isla­tive as­sem­blies of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions. The in­struc­tion to be had in the Vo­ron­da­dek schools is un­ex­celled even on Uversa. This train­ing is pro­gres­sive, ex­tend­ing from the first sphere, with sup­ple­men­tal work on its six satel­lites, on up through the re­main­ing six pri­mary spheres and their as­so­ci­ated satel­lite groups.

35:7.3The as­cend­ing pil­grims will be in­tro­duced to nu­mer­ous new ac­tiv­i­ties on these worlds of study and prac­ti­cal work. We are not for­bid­den to un­der­take the rev­e­la­tion of these new and un­dreamed-of pur­suits, but we de­spair of be­ing able to por­tray these un­der­tak­ings to the ma­te­rial mind of mor­tal be­ings. We are with­out words to con­vey the mean­ings of these su­per­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and there are no anal­o­gous hu­man en­gage­ments which might be uti­lized as il­lus­tra­tions of these new oc­cu­pa­tions of the as­cend­ing mor­tals as they pur­sue their stud­ies on these forty-nine worlds. And many other ac­tiv­i­ties, not a part of the as­cen­dant regime, are cen­tered on these Vo­ron­da­dek worlds of the Sal­ving­ton cir­cuit.

30:1.366. The Voron­dadeks.

30:2.435. Vo­ron­da­dek Sons.

43:5.1The ro­ta­tion of the Most Highs on Eden­tia was sus­pended at the time of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. We now have the same rulers who were on duty at that time. We in­fer that no change in these rulers will be made un­til Lu­cifer and his as­so­ciates are fi­nally dis­posed of.

43:5.16Ever since the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion the Eden­tia Fa­thers have ex­er­cised a spe­cial care over Uran­tia and the other iso­lated worlds of Sa­ta­nia. Long ago the prophet rec­og­nized the con­trol­ling hand of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers in the af­fairs of na­tions. “When the Most High di­vided to the na­tions their in­her­i­tance, when he sep­a­rated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the peo­ple.”

43:5.17Ev­ery quar­an­tined or iso­lated world has a Vo­ron­da­dek Son act­ing as an ob­server. He does not par­tic­i­pate in plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion ex­cept when or­dered by the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther to in­ter­vene in the af­fairs of the na­tions. Ac­tu­ally it is this Most High ob­server who “rules in the king­doms of men.” Uran­tia is one of the iso­lated worlds of Nor­la­ti­adek, and a Vo­ron­da­dek ob­server has been sta­tioned on the planet ever since the Cali­gas­tia be­trayal. When Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek min­is­tered in semi­ma­te­rial form on Uran­tia, he paid re­spect­ful homage to the Most High ob­server then on duty, as it is writ­ten, “And Mel­chiz­e­dek, king of Salem, was the priest of the Most High.” Mel­chiz­e­dek re­vealed the re­la­tions of this Most High ob­server to Abra­ham when he said, “And blessed be the Most High, who has de­liv­ered your en­e­mies into your hand.”

15:2.42. The Con­stel­la­tion. One hun­dred sys­tems (about 100,000 in­hab­it­able plan­ets) make up a con­stel­la­tion. Each con­stel­la­tion has an ar­chi­tec­tural head­quar­ters sphere and is pre­sided over by three Vo­ron­da­dek Sons, the Most Highs. Each con­stel­la­tion also has a Faith­ful of Days in ob­ser­va­tion, an am­bas­sador of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

43:3.2At least three Vo­ron­da­dek Sons are com­mis­sioned by Ga­briel as the Most Highs of each of the Neb­a­don con­stel­la­tions. The pre­sid­ing mem­ber of this trio is known as the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther and his two as­so­ciates as the se­nior Most High and the ju­nior Most High. A Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther reigns for ten thou­sand stan­dard years (about 50,000 Uran­tia years), hav­ing pre­vi­ously served as ju­nior as­so­ciate and as se­nior as­so­ciate for equal pe­ri­ods.

109:7.6Sel­dom are the Per­son­al­ized Ad­justers seen at large in the uni­verses. Oc­ca­sion­ally they con­sult with the An­cients of Days, and some­times the Per­son­al­ized Ad­justers of the sev­en­fold Cre­ator Sons come to the head­quar­ters worlds of the con­stel­la­tions to con­fer with the Vo­ron­da­dek rulers.

46:5.15The fourth cir­cle is the home of the Voron­dadeks and all other or­ders of the vis­it­ing and ob­server Sons who are not oth­er­wise pro­vided for. The Most High Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers take up their abode in this cir­cle when on vis­its of in­spec­tion to the lo­cal sys­tem. Per­fec­tors of Wis­dom, Di­vine Coun­selors, and Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors all re­side in this cir­cle when on duty in the sys­tem.

36:3.8When the Life Car­ri­ers op­er­at­ing on a new world have once suc­ceeded in pro­duc­ing a be­ing with will, with the power of moral de­ci­sion and spir­i­tual choice, then and there their work ter­mi­nates—they are through; they may ma­nip­u­late the evolv­ing life no fur­ther. From this point for­ward the evo­lu­tion of liv­ing things must pro­ceed in ac­cor­dance with the en­dow­ment of the in­her­ent na­ture and ten­den­cies which have al­ready been im­parted to, and es­tab­lished in, the plan­e­tary life for­mu­las and pat­terns. The Life Car­ri­ers are not per­mit­ted to ex­per­i­ment or to in­ter­fere with will; they are not al­lowed to dom­i­nate or ar­bi­trar­ily in­flu­ence moral crea­tures.