J. Z. Knight (Judy Zebra Knight, born Judith Darlene Hampton on March 16, 1946, in Roswell, New Mexico) is the claimed, sole legal channel of Ramtha and author of the best-selling autobiography, “A State of Mind, My Story.”

JZ Knight and Ramtha have captivated and inspired audiences worldwide for the last three decades, by claiming to bridge ancient wisdom and the power of consciousness together with the latest discoveries in science. Some of the ideas are similar to those of Shirley MacLaine's, which have in turn been criticised for being "kindergarten metaphysics" by mathematician and skeptic Martin Gardner.[2] Ramtha's teachings have further been criticised by scientists and skeptics around the world (see Controversy and Criticism below). JZ Knight has appeared on US TV shows, such as Larry King[3] and The Merv Griffin Show, offering spiritual insight and inspiration to thousands of people from all over the world, including figures from the entertainment and political world such as Linda Evans and Shirley MacLaine. JZ Knight has also participated as address speaker at the international women's conferences affiliated with the United Nations. [citation needed]

Knight now lives in a 12,800-square-foot French-chateau-styled mansion in the outskirts of Yelm, Washington, which includes a spa, swimming pool and stables, and recruits a staff of 14. A horse arena nearby has been turned into what is called The Great Hall, where she teaches courses and runs Ramtha's School of Enlightenment.

Knight has been married six times so far (five of which lead to a divorce), and is the mother of two children from her first marriage (Brandy and Christopher), which was led to a divorce because of her unwillingness to continue putting up with her husband's alcoholism and infidelity.

Career

Knight grew up in poverty and was unable to go to college. After graduating from high school, JZ Knight dropped out of business school. She does not hold a degree in either teaching, religious studies or science. Later, she went on to work at the cable television industry, and due to her work moved to Tacoma, Washington, where a psychic told her the 'Enlightened One' would appear to her in the future. Ramtha allegedly appeared to her for the first time in 1977, in her and her husband's trailer.

Knight appeared on The Merv Griffin Show in 1985, and later wrote the autobiographical A State of Mind in 1987. Time called her "probably the most celebrated of all current channelers." Ramtha's School of Enlightenment website says that since 1988, through the JZ Knight Humanities Foundation, Knight has donated $1,181,068 to 200 graduating high-school seniors "that they may pursue their educational goals." In 1996, a total of $280,000 was given to 39 graduating seniors.[citation needed]

JZ Knight has a store in Yelm, WA, along with an online store which sells products not connected with Ramtha's teaching. The store sells kitchen utensils, women's apparel, cosmetic products and pet supplies, among other products. She is currently the president of JZK, Inc and Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, located in the foothills of Mt. Rainier in Washington, and the name of Ramtha is copyrighted under JZ Knight. She also won a court case which affirmed that she is the sole legal channeler of the entity Ramtha (see Court Cases below). There have been over 120 books and 40 DVDs released by RSE, JZK Inc. or independently in the past twenty-five years.[citation needed] She also appeared in the 2004 movie What the Bleep Do We Know!?, which has been heavily criticised by the scientific community.

After an absence from public view for several years, she returned to public speaking on radio and in magazines and workshops.[when?]

Ramtha

Ramtha (Ram - in the ancient language of his world, it means "the God") is the entity that JZ Knight claims to channel. According to Ramtha, he was a Lemurian warrior who fought the Atlanteans over 35,000 years ago. Ramtha speaks of leading an army over 2.5 million strong (more than twice the estimated world population at about 30,000 BC) for 63 years, and conquering three fourths of the known world (which was going through cataclysmic geological changes). According to Ramtha, he led the army for ten years until he was betrayed and almost killed.

Ramtha says he spent the next seven years in isolation recovering and observing nature, the seasons, his army making homes and families, and many other things. He later mastered many skills, including foresight and out-of-body experiences, until he led his army to the Indus River while in his late fifties. Ramtha taught his soldiers everything he knew for 120 days, he bid them farewell, rose into the air and in a bright flash of light he ascended before them. He made a promise to his army that he would come back to teach them everything he had learnt. JZ Knight says that in 1977 Ramtha appeared before her and told her that he had come to help her over the ditch. JZ Knight became his first student of what he calls the great work.

Teachings

Ramtha is the central figure (the "master teacher") of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, started by JZ Knight in 1987 in Yelm, Washington. Classes (or "dialogues") had been held around the world for the previous ten years. There are currently over 6,000 current students of Ramtha's Teachings and many more have been to retreats in the past.

A central theme of Ramtha's teachings involves the internalization of divinity (God is in Us, You are God, Behold God). Ramtha is described as having brought his knowledge to many ancient civilizations in the world such as the Ancient Egyptians. The website also suggests that traces of the lineage of the original teachings and philosophies he taught 35,000 years ago have appeared throughout history in the schools of philosophers like Socrates, religions like Hinduism and Judaism, and the works of great minds such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

The four cornerstones of Ramtha's philosophy are:

All of the above are similar to the list of common messages stated by claimed channelled entities written by Russell Chandler:

The basic messages of the channeled entities exhibit a striking commonality:

• Death is unreal.
• All is One in the synergy of Deity.
• We are Divine Beings but have chosen to exist as physical humans.
• In this life there are no victims, only opportunities.
• We can control reality through the powers of Universal Mind.

(also see Mediumship)

Ramtha's teachings appear to be a mixture of Jungian philosophy, Western occult traditions and contemporary positive-thinking attitudes (such as New Age beliefs), but have yet to stand against elementary skepticism or scrutiny, and predictions made by the disembodied entity have either failed to come true (for example, predicting that a holocaust would take place in 1985, or that the USA would be involved in a major war in 1985) or the predicted senarios are too wide to evaluate and/or have too large an error margin to be considered, which is usually the case with channelers.

When Knight says she is channeling Ramtha, she/he speaks mostly in English, in what sounds like an accent from the Indian Raj, and sometimes in a simplistic way. Ramtha has expressed confusion about modern items (or even the ability to read English), although he seems to have clear understanding of complex issues of modern physics, such as the quantum field or neurology, which appear frequently in his speeches. During the channeling of Ramtha JZ Knight behaves a bit differently and speaks in a deeper and stern voice.

In his teachings, Ramtha has made several controversial statements, such as that Christianity is a "backward" religion, that Jesus' parables can be explained by means of photon waves and probability, that murder isn't really wrong or evil, or (during the the court case JZ Knight v Jeff Knight) Jeff Knight stated that Ramtha had allegedly declared that HIV is Nature's way of 'getting rid of' homosexuality.

Controversy and Criticism

Most books regarding Ramtha and RSE come from JZK Publishing, one of the several companies started by JZ Knight. Other books somewhat sympathetic to Ramtha, such as "Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha's School of Ancient Wisdom" by Gordon Melton, have ties to RSE in other ways. The author of Finding Enlightenment, testified for J.Z. Knight in Knight vs. Knight (1992-1995) against her former husband Jeffery Knight (see below).

Skeptics point to Ramtha's story as proof that he does not exist. Ramtha claims to come from the continent of Lemuria and to have conquered Atlantis. The existence of the two locations are considered of legendary nature, and neither have been found. Furthermore, the claim that Ramtha led an army of 2.5 million contradicts estimates of the world population at 33,000 BC, and her claims of clairvoyant, telepathetic, telekinetic and other ESP abilities, for which there is no scientific support and have been heavily criticised by skeptics and scientific communities across the world. (See also each individual article for further information.)

Ramtha's claim that every person can learn to create their own reality is in itself a philosophical paradox: If everyone is capable of creating their own realities with their minds, then what would happen if one person created a reality in which no one was allowed to create their own realities?

Magician and skeptic James Randi said that Ramtha's believers have "no way of evaluating [her teachings]", while Carl Sagan in his book The Demon-Haunted World says that "the simplest hypothesis is that Ms. Knight makes 'Ramtha' speak all by herself, and that she has no contact with disembodied entities from the Pleistocene Ice Age." He goes on to write a list of questions that Ramtha's answers would help us determine whether he is actually a disembodied entity from the paleolithic times (such as "What were the indigenous languages, and social structure?", "What was their writing like?" or "How does he know that he lived 35,000 years ago?"), and ends by saying that "[i]nstead, all we are offered are banal homilies."

JZ Knight's ex-husband, Jeff Knight, in an interview in 1992 with Joe Szimhart, said that Ramtha's teachings is a "farce" and that it "just a money making business for her [JZ Knight]". He also said that students of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment are "involved in a very dangerous, very evil corrupt thing". Jeff died from the HIV aids infection in 1994 before he could appeal the court's decision against him.

Attacks and criticism against Ramtha's teachings and Ramtha's School of Enlightenment have also been made by former students of the school. David McCarthy, a Yelm resident and former student of the School between 1989 and 1996, has accused the School of being a cult. He further claims that he was intimidated during his studies there, and he felt like mind control was being exerted by JZ Knight and the school. He said "At one point I was running around scared I was going to get eaten by the lizard people." Mc Carthy became disappointed, not only with his own experience of Ramtha's teachings but also as he had cut ties from his family to become a student as they lived in a different country. This lead McCarthy to form a group called "Life After Ramtha's School of Enlightenment", which questions the authenticity of Ramtha and encourages people to come out and express their experiences after their realisation that the RSE is a cult. The School has also been characterised as a cult by acclaimed skeptic Michael Shermer, in his book "Why People Believe Weird Things".

Glenn Cunningham, a former bodyguard of JZ Knight's, in an interview with David McCarthy details the inner workings of the Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, and criticizes various activities (such as trademarking ideas and phrases that had been coined by other authors many years before - for example, the idea of "Blue Body", or mixing quantum physics with new age ideas, which can be found in Vera Stanley Alder's "From the Mundane to the Magnificent", first published in 1979) of JZ Knight's and aspects of Ramtha which he simply saw as JZ Knight acting. Among the things he mentions is the fact that Ramtha mispronounces the same words that JZ Knight mispronounces, and that Ramtha quotes the same books that JZ Knight has read. Glenn Cunningham's admits in the video interview, that he was prone to lying to students when he saw fit or thought that it may help them.

Furthermore, Ramtha's teachings as they are portrayed in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!?, not only in the general gist of the film (which was directed and funded by students of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment) but also in instances where Ramtha is interviewed on screen, have been heavily criticised by the scientific community across the globe, and skeptics, such as James Randi.

Court Cases

JZ Knight has been involved in several court disputes, some personal and others business-related. A woman from Berlin called Judith Ravell was accused by J.Z. Knight that for five years during which Ravell claimed she was also channeling Ramtha, she was disturbing Knight's psychic state and it had left her "hanging in spiritual limbo". The case was brought to the supreme court in Vienna and lasted over five years, at the end of which Austria's supreme court awarded copyright to J.Z. Knight as the sole channelor of Ramtha, and Ravell was made to pay $800 in psychic damages to J.Z. Knight. Another case involving copyright and trademark ownership was JZK, Inc vs. Glandon, in which Joseph Glandon was accused of distributing copyrighted teachings of Ramtha.

In Knight vs. Knight (1992-1995), Jeff Knight alleges that he lost years of his life by postponing modern medical treatment for his HIV infection, due to advice from his wife that Ramtha could heal him. The court decided against him, but he died before he could appeal the court's decision.

Knight, through JZK Inc., accused WhiteWind Weaver, a Thurston County citizen, of stealing Knight's ideas and using her and Ramtha's teachings in her workshops. A trial began on March 10, 2008 in Thurston County Superior Court, and at the end of it Knight was awarded about $10,000 after the court's decision against WhiteWind Weaver.

JZ Knight also refused to attend court as a witness, in a case involving a 15-year old who claimed rape against two students of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. The 15-year old girl was invited to a RSE retreat after she had written a letter to Knight, which mentioned that her dancing and acting teacher had engaged in sexual intercourse with her. In the retreat, Knight channeled Ramtha who in turn questioned the girl, her father, and the two people who were accused of engaging in sexual activities with her, Wayne Allen Geis and Ruth Beverly Martin, on stage in front of an audience of over 800 people for about an hour, during which Geis and Martin confessed to their activities. Ramtha could not confess in court, and JZ Knight said she did not remember anything from the confession session, and could therefore not appear in court.

What I think about Ramtha kl

Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) (pronounced /ˈkeɪsiː/) was an American who claimed to be a psychic. He had demonstrated an ability to channel answers to questions on subjects such as health or Atlantis, while in a self-induced trance. Though Cayce considered himself a devout Christian and lived before the emergence of the New Age Movement, some believe he was the founder of the movement and had influence on its teachings.

Cayce became a celebrity toward the end of his life and the publicity given to his prophecies has overshadowed what to him were usually considered the more important parts of his work, such as healing (the vast majority of his readings were given for people who were sick) and theology (Cayce was a lifelong, devout member of the Disciples of Christ). Skeptics challenge the statement that Cayce demonstrated psychic abilities, and traditional Christians also question his unorthodox answers on religious matters (such as reincarnation and Akashic records).

Today there are thousands of Cayce students and more than 300 books written about Edgar Cayce. Members of Cayce's organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) exist worldwide and Edgar Cayce Centers are found in more than 35 countries.

Biography

Edgar Cayce was born into a farming family on March 18, 1877 near Beverly, seven miles (11 km) south of Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

1877 to 1920—the Kentucky period

In December 1893, the Cayce family moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky and occupied 705 West Seventh, on the south-east corner of Seventh and Young Street. During this time, Cayce received an eighth-grade education; discovered his spiritual vocation; left the family farm to pursue various forms of employment (at Richard's Dry Goods Store and then in Hopper's Bookstore, both located on Main Street).

Cayce's education stopped with the ninth grade because his family could not afford the costs involved. A ninth-grade education was often considered more than sufficient for working-class children. Much of the remainder of Cayce's younger years would be characterized by a search for both employment and money.

Throughout his life, Cayce was drawn to church as a member of the Disciples of Christ. He read the Bible once for every year of his life, taught at Sunday school, and recruited missionaries, and he is said to have agonized over the issue of whether his supposed psychic abilities—and the teachings which resulted—were spiritually legitimate.

In 1900, he formed a business partnership with his father to sell Woodmen of the World Insurance but was struck by severe laryngitis in March that resulted in a complete loss of speech. Unable to work, he lived at home with his parents for almost a year. He then decided to take up the trade of photography, an occupation that would exert less strain on his voice. He began an apprenticeship at the photography studio of W.R. Bowles in Hopkinsville.

A traveling stage hypnotist and entertainer called "Hart—The Laugh Man" was performing at the Hopkinsville Opera House in 1901. He heard about Cayce's condition and offered to attempt a cure. Cayce accepted, and the experiment took place on stage in front of an audience. Remarkably, Cayce's voice apparently returned while in a hypnotic trance but allegedly disappeared on awakening. Hart tried a posthypnotic suggestion that the voice would continue to function after the trance, but this proved unsuccessful.

Since Hart had appointments at other cities, he could not continue his hypnotic treatment of Cayce. However, a local hypnotist, Al Layne, offered to help Cayce in restoring his voice. Layne suggested that Cayce describe the nature of his condition and cure while in a hypnotic trance. Cayce described his own ailment from a first person plural point of view ("we") instead of the singular ("I"). In subsequent readings he would generally start off with "We have the body." According to the reading, his voice loss was due to psychological paralysis and could be corrected by increasing the blood flow to the voice box. Layne suggested that the blood flow be increased, and Cayce's face supposedly became flushed with blood and his chest area and the throat turned bright red. After 20 minutes Cayce, still in trance, declared the treatment over. On awakening, his voice was alleged to have remained normal. Relapses were said to have occurred but were said to have been corrected by Layne in the same way, and eventually the cure was said to be permanent.

Layne had read of similar hypnotic cures effected by the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Franz Mesmer, and was keen to explore the limits of the healing knowledge of the trance voice. He asked Cayce to describe Layne's own ailments and suggest cures and reportedly found the results both accurate and effective. Layne suggested that Cayce offer his trance healing to the public, but Cayce was reluctant. He finally agreed on the condition that readings would be free. He began with Layne's help to offer free treatments to the townspeople. As his success and fame spread, he became known as "The Miracle Worker of Virginia Beach." Reports of Cayce's work appeared in the newspapers, inspiring many postal inquiries. Cayce was able to work just as effectively using a letter from the individual as with having the person present. Given the person's name and location, he said he could diagnose the physical and/or mental conditions and provide a remedy. He became popular and soon people from around the world sought his advice through correspondence.

Cayce's work grew in volume as his fame grew. He asked for voluntary donations to support himself and his family so that he could practice full time. He continued to work in an apparent trance state with a hypnotist all his life. His wife and eldest son later replaced Layne in this role. A secretary, Gladys Davis, recorded his readings in shorthand.

] 1920 to 1923—the Texas period

The growing fame of Cayce coupled with the popularity he received from newspapers attracted several eager commercially minded men who wanted to seek a fortune by using Cayce's clairvoyant abilities. Even though Cayce was reluctant to help them, he was persuaded to give the readings, which left him dissatisfied with himself and unsuccessful. A cotton merchant offered Cayce a hundred dollars a day for his readings about the daily outcomes in the cotton market. However, despite his poor finances, Cayce refused the merchant's offer. Others wanted to know where to hunt for treasures; some wanted to know the outcome of horse races. Several times he was persuaded to give the readings as an experiment. However, he was not successful when he used his ability for such purposes, doing no better than chance alone would dictate. These experiments allegedly left him depleted of energy, distraught, and unsatisfied with himself. Finally, he came to the conclusion that he would use his gift only to help the distressed and sick.

He was persuaded to give readings on philosophical subjects in 1923 by Arthur Lammers, a wealthy printer who, by his own admission, had been "studying metaphysics for years". While in his supposed trance state, Cayce was told by Lammers that he spoke of Lammer's past lives and of reincarnation, something Lammers believed in, which was a popular subject of the day but not an accepted part of Christian doctrine. Cayce questioned his stenographer as to what he had said in his trance state and remained unconvinced. Cayce himself challenged Lammers's charge that he had validated astrology and reincarnation in the following dialog:

Cayce "I said all that?...I couldn't have said all that in one reading." "No," Lammers said; "but you confirmed it. You see, I have been studying metaphysics for years, and I was able by a few questions, by the facts you gave, to check what is right and what is wrong with a whole lot of the stuff I've been reading. The important thing is that the basic system which runs through all the mystery religions, whether they come from Tibet or the pyramids of Egypt, is backed up by you. It's actually the right system." Cayce's stenographer recorded the following:

Cayce was quite unconvinced (that he had been referring to and, as such, had validated the doctrine of reincarnation), and the best Lammers could offer was that the reading "opens up the door" and went on to share his beliefs and knowledge of the "truth" with Cayce. It appeared Cayce's instincts were telling him this was no ordinary reading. This client who came for a reading came with quite a bit of information of his own to share with Cayce and seemed intent upon convincing Cayce, now that he felt the reading had confirmed his strongly held beliefs. It should be noted, however, that 12 years earlier Cayce had briefly alluded to reincarnation. In reading 4841-1, given April 22, 1911, Cayce referred to the soul being "transmigrated." Because, as noted below, there are several thousand missing Cayce readings from the period up to 1923, it is possible that he may have also mentioned reincarnation in other readings as well.

Cayce reported that his conscience bothered him severely over this conflict. Lammers overwhelmed, manipulated, confused, reassured and argued with Cayce. Ultimately his "trance voice," the "we" of the readings, also supposedly dialogued with Cayce and finally persuaded him to continue with these kinds of readings. In 1925 Cayce reported that his "voice" had instructed him to move to Virginia Beach, Virginia.

1925 to 1945—the Virginia Beach period

Cayce's mature period, in which he created the several institutions which would survive him in some form, can be considered to have started in 1925. By this time he was a professional psychic with a small staff of employees and volunteers. The "readings" increasingly came to involve occult or esoteric themes.

In 1929, the Cayce hospital was established in Virginia Beach, sponsored by a wealthy recipient of the trance readings, Morton Blumenthal.

Cayce gained national prominence in 1943 through a high-profile article in Coronet titled "Miracle Man of Virginia Beach".[16] He said he couldn't refuse people who felt they needed his help, and he increased the frequency of his readings to eight per day to try to make an impression on the ever-growing pile of requests. He said this took a toll on his health as it was emotionally draining and often fatigued him. He even went so far as to say that the readings themselves scolded him for attempting too much and that he should limit his workload to just two readings a day or else they would kill him.

Edgar Cayce suffered from a stroke and died on January 3, 1945. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery[20] in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Claimed psychic abilities

Edgar Cayce has variously been referred to as a "prophet" (cf. Jess Stearn's book, The Sleeping Prophet), a "mystic", a "seer", and a "clairvoyant".

Cayce's methods involved lying down and entering into what appeared to be a trance or sleep state, usually at the request of a subject who was seeking help with health or other personal problems (subjects were not usually present). The subject's questions would then be given to Cayce, and Cayce would proceed with a reading. At first these readings dealt primarily with the physical health of the individual (physical readings); later readings on past lives, business advice, dream interpretation, and mental or spiritual health were also given.

Until September 1923, they were not systematically preserved. However, an October 10, 1922, Birmingham (Alabama) Age-Herald article quotes Cayce as saying that he had given 8,056 readings as of that date, and it is known that he gave approximately 13,000-14,000 readings after that date. Today, only about 14,000 are available at Cayce headquarters and on-line. Thus, it appears that about 7,000-8,000 Cayce readings are missing.

When out of the trance he entered to perform a reading, Cayce said he generally did not remember what he had said during the reading. The unconscious mind, according to Cayce, has access to information which the conscious mind does not — a common assumption about hypnosis in Cayce's time. After Gladys Davis became Cayce's secretary on September 10, 1923, all readings were preserved and his wife Gertrude Evans Cayce generally conducted (guided) the readings.

Cayce said that his trance statements should be taken into account only to the extent that they led to a better life for the recipient. Moreover, he invited his audience to test his suggestions rather than accept them on faith.

Other abilities that have been attributed to Cayce include astral projection, prophesying, mediumship, viewing the Akashic Records or "Book of Life", and seeing auras. Cayce said he became interested in learning more about these subjects after he was informed about the content of his readings, which he reported that he never actually heard himself.

Major themes

The health readings are most numerous, and they involve many alternative health concepts and practices. Cayce described his work in terms of Christian service. People with esoteric interests have focused on a somewhat different set of topics.

Supporters of Cayce

Dr. Gina Cerminara published books such as Many Mansions, and The World Within. Dr. Brian Weiss published the bestseller regarding clinical recollection of past lives, Many Lives, Many Masters. These books provide broad support for spirituality and reincarnation. "Many Mansions" elaborates on Cayce's works and buttresses his stated abilities with real life examples.

One such example from Gina Cerminara's works:

"Cayce once gave a reading on a blind man, a musician by profession, who regained part of his vision in one eye through following the physical suggestions given by Cayce. This man happened to have a passion for railroads and a tremendous interest in the Civil War. In the life reading which Cayce gave, he said that the man had been a soldier in the South, in the army of Lee, and that he had been a railroad man by profession in that incarnation. Then he proceeded to tell him that his name in that life was Barnett Seay, and that the records of Seay could still be found in the state of Virginia. The man took the trouble to hunt for the records -- and found them, in the state capitol at Richmond: that is to say he found the record of one Barnett Seay, standard-bearer in Lee's army who had entered and been discharged from the service in such and such a year."

The Dictionary of American Religious Biography writes about Cayce,

As a humble individual full of self-doubts, Cayce never profited from his mystic gift. He read the Bible every day, taught Sunday School, and helped others only when asked. Many did ask, and over the years he produced readings that diagnosed health problems, prescribed dietary regimens, dealt with psychic disorders, and predicted future events such as wars, earthquakes, and changes in governments. He spoke, moreover, of reincarnations, the early history of Israel, and the lost civilization of Atlantis. Enough of his diagnoses and predictions proved true to silence many skeptics and to develop a wide following.

Controversy and criticism

Skeptics of Cayce say that the evidence for his powers comes from contemporaneous newspaper articles, affidavits, anecdotes, and testimonials, which are not scientifically rigorous. They are also critical of Cayce's support for various forms of alternative medicine, which are regarded by many as quackery. Michael Shermer writes in Why People Believe Weird Things, "Uneducated beyond the ninth grade, Cayce acquired his broad knowledge through voracious reading and from this he wove elaborate tales." Shermer wrote that, "Cayce was fantasy-prone from his youth, often talking with angels and receiving visions of his dead grandfather." Shermer further cites James Randi as saying "Cayce was fond of expressions like 'I feel that' and 'perhaps' -- qualifying words used to avoid positive declarations." Shermer also says that methods used at the institution operated by Cayce's followers show their ESP experiments have no statistical difference from chance.

One of Cayce's most controversial statements[citation needed] regards the actual age of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. In one of his readings: (Q) What was the date of the actual beginning and ending of the construction of the Great Pyramid? (A) Was one hundred years in construction. Begun and completed in the period of Araaraart's time, with Atlanteans Hermes and Ra. (Q) What was the date B.C. of that period? (A) 10,490 to 10,390 before the Prince (Jesus) entered into Egypt.

In 1984, the Cayce foundation supported an effort to carbon date the pyramids of Giza. The average radiocarbon dates were 374 years earlier than expected by the Egyptologists, but nowhere near the 10,500 years B.C. claimed by Cayce. The carbon dates of the Great Pyramid ranged from about 3800–2850 B.C.—about 7,000 years later than Cayce's claim.

See also

• Edgar Cayce on karma
• New Age Spirituality
• Nostradamus

The Urantia Book (sometimes called the Urantia Papers or The Fifth Epochal Revelation) is a spiritual and philosophical book that discusses God, Jesus, science, cosmology, religion, history and destiny. It originated in Chicago, Illinois, USA, sometime between 1924 and 1955. There has been much debate and speculation on how the papers were produced and who the authors were.

The writers introduce the word Urantia as the name of the planet Earth and state their intent is to "present enlarged concepts and advanced truth" in an "endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception." Among many other topics, it expounds on the origin and meaning of life, describes humankind's place in the universe, discusses the relationship between God and people, and presents a detailed biography of Jesus.

The Urantia Foundation first published The Urantia Book in 1955 in English. The organization has translated it into eleven other languages, with new translations in process.

In 2001, a United States jury trial in Oklahoma City found that the Urantia Foundation's 1983 renewal of the book's copyright was invalid.[4] This decision was upheld in the United States Court of Appeals 10th District,[5] and the English version of the book is considered to have entered the public domain in the U.S. as of 1983.[2] In 2006, the international copyright on the English text expired.[6] A print edition containing a topical index and an audio DVD has been published by The Urantia Book Fellowship as Uversa Press since the 2001 decision. Copies of The Urantia Book are on the Internet in various formats and it has been adapted to more recent platforms such as the Kindle and the iPhone / iPod Touch App Store. Several audio books of the text are also on the Internet.

Overview of The Urantia Book

The Urantia Book is 2,097 pages long, and consists of an introductory statement followed by 196 "papers" divided into four parts:

The foreword is presented as a guide to the terminology developed in greater detail in Part I, introducing explanations for concepts and words that are "in designation of Deity and certain associated concepts of the things, meanings, and values of universal reality."

Part I consists of 31 papers that address what are considered the highest levels of creation, beginning with the "First Source and Center of all things and beings", the eternal and infinite "Universal Father".

Part II is composed of 25 papers pertaining to the origin, administration and personalities of "local universes." It presents narratives on the inhabitants of local universes and their work as it is coordinated with a scheme of spiritual ascension and progression of different orders of beings, including humans.

Part III includes 48 papers that compile a broad history of the Earth, presenting a purported explanation of the origin, purpose, and destiny of the world and its inhabitants. An additional 15 papers cover various topics such as "Deity and Reality", the concept of the Thought Adjuster, "Personality Survival", and "The Bestowals of Christ Michael".

Part IV is presented in 77 papers and narrates "The Life and Teachings of Jesus". Included are papers about his childhood, teenage years, family life, various employment experiences before the commencement of his public ministry, an exhaustive recital of his public ministry and the events that led to his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. It continues with papers about appearances after he rose, Pentecost, and finally, "The Faith of Jesus". Through the story of Jesus' life, Part IV illustrates many of the concepts presented in the first three parts.

Authorship

The exact circumstances of the origin of The Urantia Book are unknown. The book and its publishers do not name a human author, instead it is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an "epochal" spiritual revelation to humankind. For each paper, either a name, or an order of celestial being, or a group of beings is credited as its author.[7][8][9]

As early as 1911, William S. Sadler and his wife Lena Sadler, physicians in Chicago and well known in the community, were approached by a neighbor who was concerned because she would occasionally find her husband in a deep sleep and breathing abnormally.[2][7] She reported that she was unable to wake him at these times. The Sadlers came to observe the episodes, and over time, the individual produced verbal communications that claimed to be from "student visitor" spiritual beings.[2] This changed in early 1925 with a "voluminous handwritten document", which from then on became the regular method of purported communication.[2] The Sadlers were both respected physicians, and William Sadler was a debunker of paranormal claims, who is portrayed as not believing in the supernatural. In 1929, he published a book called The Mind at Mischief, in which he explained the fraudulent methods of mediums and how self-deception leads to psychic claims. He wrote in an appendix that there were two cases that he had not explained to his satisfaction.[10]

The other exception has to do with a rather peculiar case of psychic phenomena, one which I find myself unable to classify, and which I would like very much to narrate more fully; I cannot do so here, however, because of a promise which I feel under obligation to keep sacredly. In other words, I have promised not to publish this case during the lifetime of the individual. I hope sometime to secure a modification of that promise and be able to report this case more fully because of its interesting features. I was brought in contact with it, in the summer of 1911, and I have had it under my observation more or less ever since, having been present at probably 250 of the night sessions, many of which have been attended by a stenographer who made voluminous notes.

A thorough study of this case has convinced me that it is not one of ordinary trance. While the sleep seems to be quite of a natural order, it is very profound, and so far we have never been able to awaken the subject when in this state; but the body is never rigid, and the heart action is never modified, though respiration is sometimes markedly interfered with. This man is utterly unconscious, wholly oblivious to what takes place, and unless told about it subsequently, never knows that he has been used as a sort of clearing house for the coming and going of alleged extra-planetary personalities. In fact, he is more or less indifferent to the whole proceeding, and shows a surprising lack of interest in these affairs as they occur from time to time.

Eighteen years of study and careful investigation have failed to reveal the psychic origin of these messages. I find myself at the present time just where I was when I started. Psychoanalysis, hypnotism, intensive comparison, fail to show that the written or spoken messages of this individual have origin in his own mind. Much of the material secured through this subject is quite contrary to his habits of thought, to the way in which he has been taught, and to his entire philosophy. In fact, of much that we have secured, we have failed to find anything of its nature in existence. Its philosophic content is quite new, and we are unable to find where very much of it has ever found human expression.

In 1924, a group of Sadler's friends, former patients, and colleagues began meeting for Sunday intellectual discussions, but became interested in the strange communications when Sadler mentioned the case and read samples at their request. Shortly afterwards, a communication reportedly was received that this group would be allowed to devise questions and that answers would be given by celestial beings through the "contact personality".

Sadler presented this development to the group, and they generated hundreds of questions without full seriousness, but their claim is that it resulted in the appearance of answers in the form of fully written papers. They became more impressed with the quality of the answers and continued to ask questions, until all papers now collected together as The Urantia Book were obtained. The group was known as the Forum. A smaller group of five individuals called the Contact Commission, including the Sadlers, was responsible for gathering the questions from the Forum, acting as the custodians of the handwritten manuscripts that were presented as answers, and arranging for proofreading and typing of the material.[7]

The Sadlers and others involved, now all deceased, claimed[11] that the papers of the book were physically materialized from 1925 until 1935 in a way that was not understood even by them, with the first three parts being completed in 1934 and the fourth in 1935. The last Forum gathering was in 1942. Also documented are methods of reception that Sadler denied as the way the papers were received.[8]

After all of the written material was received in 1935, an additional period of time supposedly took place where requests for clarifications resulted in revisions. Sadler and his son William (Bill) Sadler, Jr. at one point wrote a draft introduction and were told that they could not add their introduction because "A city can not be lit by a candle." [12][13] The Foreword was then "received." Bill Sadler is noted to have composed the table of contents that is published with the book.[citation needed]

The communications purportedly continued for another two decades while members of the Forum studied the book in depth, and according to Sadler and others, permission to publish it was given to them in 1955. The Urantia Foundation was formed in 1950 as a tax-exempt educational society in Illinois,[14] and through privately raised funds, the book was published under international copyright on October 12, 1955.

Only the members of the Contact Commission witnessed the activities of the sleeping subject, and only they knew his identity.[2] The individual is claimed to have been kept anonymous in order to prevent undesirable future veneration or reverence for him. Martin Gardner states that an explanation concerning the origin of the book more plausible than celestial beings is that the Contact Commission, particularly William Sadler, was responsible. Gardner's conclusion is that a man named Wilfred Kellogg was the sleeping subject and authored the work from his subconscious mind, with William Sadler subsequently editing and authoring parts.[7] A statistical analysis using the Mosteller and Wallace methods of stylometry indicates at least nine authors were involved, and by comparatively analyzing the book against Sadler's The Mind at Mischief, does not indicate authorship or extensive editing by Sadler, without ruling out the possibility of limited edits.[2]

Teachings

Nature of God

God in The Urantia Book is the creator and upholder of all reality—an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite, and eternal spirit personality.

The most fundamental teaching about God in the book is that he is a loving Father, with whom all may have a personal relationship. "The face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love." Even during the development of numerous other themes in The Urantia Book, God as a loving Father is emphasized as the central, unifying attitude of God toward his creation.

From Paper 2, "The Nature of God":

God is inherently kind, naturally compassionate, and everlastingly merciful. And never is it necessary that any influence be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his loving-kindness. The creature's need is wholly sufficient to insure the full flow of the Father's tender mercies and his saving grace. Since God knows all about his children, it is easy for him to forgive. The better man understands his neighbor, the easier it will be to forgive him, even to love him.

God is said to be a mystery though because of the infinite scope of his perfection and his attributes. From Paper 1, "The Universal Father":

God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because he "dwells in a light which no material creature can approach." The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals. Today, and as you are, you must discern the invisible Maker through his manifold and diverse creation, as well as through the revelation and ministration of his Sons and their numerous subordinates.

God according to the book is one Deity who functions on a range of different levels of reality, both personal and impersonal. God is taught to exist in a Trinity of three perfectly individualized persons who are co-equal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. These persons are referred to by additional titles in the book, primarily as the "Universal Father", "Eternal Son", and "Infinite Spirit". While stating that the concept of one God in three persons is difficult to fully understand, the book says that the idea "in no manner violates the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all universe reality reactions and in all creature relations, as one".

The Father, Son, and Spirit are considered "existential" persons of Deity, those in existence from the eternal past to the eternal future—without beginning or end. In addition, three persons of Deity are described who are "experiential", or incomplete and in the process of actualizing: God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute. Of these three, God the Supreme, or "the Supreme Being", is given the most explanation, as the person of Deity evolving in time and space to unify finite reality and the infinite. The persons of God the Ultimate and God the Absolute are considered to be remote from the possibility of comprehension and are covered on a limited basis.

Many types of celestial beings are enumerated in the book, and one of particular note is a joint "offspring" of the Universal Father and Eternal Son called a "Creator Son". A divine Creator Son is considered the full representation of the Universal Father and Eternal Son that is possible to people. Jesus of Nazareth is identified as a Creator Son who incarnated on Earth and whose life and teachings are portrayed as the fullest revelation of the personality and attitude of God ever given to humanity.

Paper 196, "The Faith of Jesus",: the final paper, states:

To "follow Jesus" means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.

God and the individual

God is described as the Father of each individual, and through the direct gift of a fragment of his eternal spirit, called a Thought Adjuster, is said to be able to guide the individual toward an increased understanding of him. The Thought Adjuster is also called a "Mystery Monitor," "inner voice," "divine spark," and "pilot light". The concept is in certain ways comparable to the Hindu atman, the ancient Egyptian ka, and the Quaker inner light. From philosophy, it is similar to what Socrates' described as his "daimonion". In relation to biblical traditions, the Thought Adjuster is described by the book as the meaning behind the phrases "being made in God's image" and the "kingdom of God is within you".

From Paper 108, "Mission and Ministry of Thought Adjusters":

The Adjuster is the mark of divinity, the presence of God. The "image of God" does not refer to physical likeness nor to the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal bestowal of the Thought Adjusters upon the humble creatures of the universes.

According to The Urantia Book, each normal-minded person receives one such fragment at the time of his or her first independent moral decision, on average around the age of five years and ten months. The Adjuster then serves noncoercively as a divine partner for the rest of life, and to the extent that a person consents with their free will to want to find God, it leads the person toward more mature, spiritualized thinking. Through the practice of learning how to follow the inner leadings of the Adjuster — choose "God's will" — the individual progresses to greater God consciousness and spiritual growth.

A person's Thought Adjuster is described as distinct from either the soul or the conscience. In The Urantia Book's teachings, the degree to which a human mind chooses to accept its Adjuster's guidance becomes the degree to which a person's soul "grows" and becomes a reality that can then survive death. The soul is in essence an embryonic spiritual development, one parental factor being the divine Adjuster and the other being the human will.

The book many times links the biblical New Testament teachings of becoming like a little child in attitude of trust and sincerity as being the stance each person should have toward God. It says the attitude of open-minded teachability facilitates spiritual growth in liaison with the work of the Thought Adjuster and invariably leads a person to love and serve other people. It also says, "But you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster". The book is strongly fideistic and teaches that neither science nor logic will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of God, arguing that faith is necessary to become conscious of God's presence in human experience, the Thought Adjuster.

From Paper 101, "The Real Nature of Religion":

Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God's transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension.

Persistently embracing sin is the same as rejecting the leadings of the Adjuster, the same as rejecting the will of God. Constant selfishness and sinful choosing lead eventually to iniquity and full identification with unrighteousness, and since unrighteousness is unreal, it results in the eventual annihilation of the individual's identity. Personalities like this become "as if they never were". The book says that "in the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity". The concepts of Hell and reincarnation are not taught.

From Paper 5, "God's Relation to the Individual":

The great God makes direct contact with mortal man and gives a part of his infinite and eternal and incomprehensible self to live and dwell within him. God has embarked upon the eternal adventure with man. If you yield to the leadings of the spiritual forces in you and around you, you cannot fail to attain the high destiny established by a loving God as the universe goal of his ascendant creatures from the evolutionary worlds of space.

The book says that a person ultimately is destined to fuse with his or her divine fragment and become one inseparable entity with it, if the person chooses to accept the Adjuster's leadings and become self-identified with it. The act of fusion is the moment when a human personality has successfully and unalterably won eternal life, described as typically taking place in the afterlife, but also a possibility during earthly life. The result during human life is a "fusion flash", with the material body consumed in a fiery light and the soul "translated" to the afterlife. The Hebrew prophet Elijah being taken to heaven without death in "chariots of fire" is said to be a rare example in recorded history of a person who attained fusion. Once fused with his or her fragment of God, a person continues as an ascending citizen in the universe and travels through numerous worlds on a long, adventurous pilgrimage of growth and learning that eventually leads to God and Paradise. Mortals who reach this stage are called "finaliters." The book goes on to discuss the potential destinies of these "glorified mortals".

The Urantia Book places much emphasis on the idea that all individuals have the same opportunity to come to know God, and it says nothing can hinder a human being's spiritual progression if he or she is sincerely motivated to be spirit led. People are to actively work to understand each other and to seek to live in love and peace, being of help to one another. The practice of the "religion of Jesus" is to love God the Father with a person's whole being, thereby learning to love each person the way Jesus loves people; that is, recognizing others as brothers and sisters and being of unselfish service to one another.

Cosmology

The Urantia Book presents a detailed cosmological perspective on the universe and humankind's relation to it. It teaches that the universe is vastly older than current scientific theories state, and that the universe is the product of intelligent and purposeful organization.

The term "universe" is used to denote a number of different scales of organization, possibly because the book was written at a time when galaxies outside of the Milky Way were still called "island universes". A superuniverse is roughly the size of a galaxy or group of galaxies. A local universe is a sub-unit comprising approximately 10 million inhabited worlds when fully developed and accounts for 0.001% of the size of a superuniverse. The modern dictionary definition of universe — all existing matter and space taken as a whole — is referred to as the "master universe". When the term "universe" is used alone, the type usually can be inferred from the context.

The visualization of the cosmos presented from the center outward is:

The book describes alternative explanations to current hypotheses in science regarding the universe's origin, and suggests sources of error in current astronomical observations. For example, the concept of "space respiration" — that all of space itself undergoes "two-billion-year expansion-contraction cycles"— is claimed to be part of the explanation for astronomic redshift. The Urantia Book says we are currently almost half way through an expansion cycle.

The Urantia Book states that the cosmology in the papers will be in need of revision as new discoveries emerge in science, and that its presentations are not meant to be a substitute for science.

History and future of the world

Urantia is considered one inhabited sphere among millions of others in the universe. The book's extensive teachings about the history of the world include its physical development billions of years ago from cataclysmic meteor captures, the gradual changes in conditions that allowed life to develop, and the long ages of organic evolution that started with microscopic marine life and led to plant and animal life in the oceans, later on land. The emergence of humans is presented as having occurred about a million years ago from a branch of superior primates originating from a lemur ancestor.

The Urantia Book says "this story is graphically told within the fossil pages of the vast 'stone book' of world record ... the pages of this gigantic biogeologic record unfailingly tell the truth if you but acquire skill in their interpretation". Unlike current scientific views, evolution is said to be orderly and controlled. Primordial life is taught to have been intelligently planned, implanted, and monitored by "Life Carriers," instead of arising spontaneously. The book says that "mortal man is not an evolutionary accident", and that the purpose of evolution on a planet such as Urantia is to produce creatures of "will dignity" that can develop spiritual natures and survive material existence, going on to have eternal spiritual careers.

The Urantia Book teaches not only biological evolution, but that human society and spiritual understandings evolve by slow progression, subject both to periods of rapid improvement and the possibility of retrogression. Progress is said to follow a divine plan that includes periodic gifts of revelation and ministry by heavenly teachers, which eventually will lead to an ideal world status of "light and life" in the far distant future.

Though there is the ideal and divine plan, it is said to be fostered and administered by various orders of celestial beings who are less than perfect. Through mistakes or deliberate rebellion, the plan can be wrecked, requiring long spans of time to recoup lost progress. Urantia is said to be a markedly "dark and confused" planet that is "greatly retarded in all phases of intellectual progress and spiritual attainment" compared to more typical inhabited worlds, due to an unusually severe history of rebellion and default by its spiritual supervisors.

Comparisons to religious teachings

Comparison to Christianity

Of all current major world religions, Christianity is the one most similar to The Urantia Book's teachings. However, there are numerous and significant differences between The Urantia Book and commonly accepted Christian beliefs.

Jesus is held in high regard by The Urantia Book, as he is in the New Testament of the Bible. More than one third of the content of the book (Part IV), is devoted to a narrative of his life and teachings. The narrative is said to be a restatement of Jesus' life and teachings based on a gathering of "superior concepts" from over two thousand individuals who have lived since his times, as well as "superhuman" and "superplanetary sources of information".

The following are attributed to Jesus, as in the Bible:[1]

The Urantia Book shares the following general concepts with most Christian faiths:[1]

Some differences with Christianity include:

Comparison to Buddhism

The Urantia Book considers Buddhism one of the "great international, interracial faiths" and says it "has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples that has been equaled only by Christianity."

Gautama Siddhartha is called a real prophet whose doctrines were "revolutionary and amazing" for their time. He is credited with being one of the seven outstanding teachers in human history in the matter of combining contemporaneous systems of ethical and religious teachings, a group that includes Moses, Laozi, and the Apostle Paul.

The teaching that a divine nature — the Buddha-nature — resides in all people, and that through their own endeavors people can attain a realization of this inner divinity, is cited as one of the clearest presentations of the concept of the Thought Adjuster to be found in non-revelatory religion.

The book says Gautama's experience was tragic, however, in that he was an "orphan prophet" whose philosophy failed early on to envision the reality of a spiritual God.

Despite this, the book states: "Buddhism is a living, growing religion today because it succeeds in conserving many of the highest moral values of its adherents. It promotes calmness and self-control, augments serenity and happiness, and does much to prevent sorrow and mourning. Those who believe this philosophy live better lives than many who do not."

Comparison to other world religions

Facets of other world religions are incorporated in the book, including from Islam, Taoism, Judaism, Hinduism, Shinto, and Confucianism. For example, paper 131, "The World's Religions", discusses more in-depth those aspects of different religions that have commonalities with what the book claims is the "religion of Jesus." There are also numerous other references to the world's major religions throughout Part III, "The History of Urantia," beginning with Paper 86, "Early Evolution of Religion". The perspective of The Urantia Book is that all religions should be studied to take "the best" from each.

Consideration as literature

The Urantia Book has been enjoyed by some as a form of science fiction, historical fiction, or fantasy. The Urantia Book is noted for its high level of internal consistency and an advanced writing style. Skeptic Martin Gardner, in a book otherwise highly critical of The Urantia Book, writes that it is "highly imaginative" and that the "cosmology outrivals in fantasy the cosmology of any science-fiction work known to me".

Parts I, II, and III are chiefly written in expository language. The papers are informational, matter-of-fact, and instructional. Part IV of the book is written as a biography of Jesus' life, and some feel it is a rich narrative with well-developed characters, high attention to detail, woven sub-plots, and realistic dialogue. Considered as literature, Part IV is favorably compared to other retellings of Jesus' life, such as The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago and Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock. Martin Gardner considers Part IV to be an especially "well-written, impressive work", and says, "Either it is accurate in its history, coming directly from higher beings in position to know, or it is a work of fertile imagination by someone who knew the New Testament by heart and who was also steeped in knowledge of the times when Jesus lived."

Critical views

The Urantia Book has received limited published or formal critical analysis. The most common points of contention include:

[edit] Criticisms of claims as a revelation

In Paper 92, "The Later Evolution of Religion", the authors make a reference to the papers as the fifth revelation of "epochal significance" to humankind, the fourth epochal revelation having been the life of Jesus.

The book has been in print since 1955, but as compared to other religious or holy books that have a recent origin and revelatory claims, such as the Book of Mormon, popularity of The Urantia Book has not grown as fast. The small movement inspired by The Urantia Book has not developed clergy or institutions such as churches, reading rooms, or temples, and has no membership by which a census of the number of followers can be taken.[15][17] As of 2006, the Urantia Foundation had one office in Chicago and five people on staff.[6]

The claim of revelation in The Urantia Book has been criticized for various reasons. Skeptics such as Martin Gardner say it is a product of human efforts rather than a revelation because some of its science is flawed. Because the book does not support certain fundamental doctrines of Christianity[citation needed], while at the same time presenting an account of parts of Jesus' life absent in the Bible, those[who?] with a Christian viewpoint have argued it cannot be genuine. Some[who?] have thought it to be gnostic, however The Urantia Book is not associated with Gnosticism[citation needed].

Other critics have felt that at over 2,000 pages — nearly twice the length of the King James Bible — it is too long, complex, and bureaucratic.

Criticism of science

In Paper 101, "The Real Nature of Religion," the authors write:

We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired.

Skeptics like Martin Gardner see the science in The Urantia Book as clear reflections of the views that prevailed at the time the book is said to have originated. The claim by the authors that no unknown scientific discoveries could be imparted is seen as a ruse to allow mistakes to be dismissed later. That presentation of post-1955 scientific knowledge is avoided is taken to be evidence it was written by humans and not by celestial beings with superior knowledge.

Examples of criticisms regarding the science in The Urantia Book include:

Controversial statements about human races can be found in the book. Supporters state that criticism has arisen mainly due to reading passages out of context. Gardner believes that William S. Sadler, who wrote some eugenicist works, had a hand in editing or writing the book, and that this is how the ideas were included. Possibly controversial statements about the sexes can also be found. While the book supports social and spiritual equality between men and women, it states that they will always have distinctive "spheres" in society due to their biological differences.

While some adherents of the book believe that all of the information in The Urantia Book including its science is literally true, others accept the book's caveats but do not believe that the science is fully accurate.

Meredith Sprunger, a liberal believer in The Urantia Book and retired minister in the United Church of Christ, writes, "research has revealed that virtually all of the scientific material found in The Urantia Book was the accepted scientific knowledge of the period in which the book was written, was held by some scientists of that time, or was about to be discovered or recognized." He argues against its literal infallibility and that fundamentalism over the book is "just as untenable as Biblical fundamentalism".[7]

Other believers maintain that the book has prophetically anticipated scientific advances already. They believe more of its science — if not all of it — will be proven correct in the future. Gardner evaluated many of these claims as of 1995 and found them unconvincing. Some arise because the book is said to have been indited by the revelators by 1935, but then was not published until 1955. Science discovered during the two intervening decades can be perceived as prophetic by believers, while skeptics think such facts were added prior to publication. For instance, the catalytic role that carbon plays in the sun's nuclear reactions is described in the book, though Hans Bethe's announcement of the discovery was not made until 1938.

The only apparent anticipation of science the book has made, in Gardner's opinion, is that it says the magnetic sense that homing pigeons possess is "not wholly wanting as a conscious possession by mankind". In 1980, a British zoologist, Robin Baker, published evidence that humans have a limited magnetic sense.

Mark McMenamin, a professor of geology, quotes a section of the book describing a billion-year-old supercontinent that subsequently split apart, forming ocean basins where early marine life developed. He says, "This amazing passage, written in the 1930s, anticipates scientific results that did not actually appear in the scientific literature until many decades later." McMenamin also states, "Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book."

Plagiarism allegations

The Urantia Book states in its Foreword that more than one thousand "human concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings" were selected in preparing the papers. The authors say that they were required to "give preference to the highest existing human concepts pertaining to the subjects to be presented" and would "resort to pure revelation only when the concept of presentation has had no adequate previous expression by the human mind."

In recent years, students of the papers have found that the free use of other sources appears to be true.[7][15] None of the material allegedly used from other sources are directly cited or referenced within the book.

In 1992, a reader of The Urantia Book, Matthew Block, self-published a paper that showed nineteen alleged examples of The Urantia Book utilizing material published earlier.[20] All of the source authors identified in Block's paper were published in English between 1905 and 1943 by U.S. publishers and are typically scholarly or academic works that contain concepts and wording similar to what is found in The Urantia Book. Block has since claimed to have discovered over 125 source books and articles, written by over 90 authors, which were incorporated into the papers.[7]

The use of outside source materials was studied separately by Gardner and Gooch, and they concluded that the book did use many of the sources noted by Block. Gardner found that at least one of the source book authors was quoted in earlier works by Sadler, and most of the books purportedly would have been available to Sadler or Forum members in Chicago prior to 1955.

For instance, Gardner and Block note that Paper 85 appears to have been taken from the first eight chapters of Origin and Evolution of Religion by E. Washburn Hopkins, published by Yale University Press in 1923. Each section of the paper corresponds to a chapter in the book, with several passages possibly used as direct material. Likewise, much of The Urantia Book material relating to the evolution of mankind appears to have been directly taken from Henry Fairfield Osborn, Man Rises to Parnassus: Critical Epochs in the Prehistory of Man published by Princeton University Press in 1928.

In one example cited by Block, the original author discusses the periodicity of the chemical elements and concludes that the harmony in the construction of the atom suggests some unspecified plan of organization. In conclusion from this "plagiarism," the authors of The Urantia Book assert that this harmony is evidence of the intelligent design of the universe. W. F. G. Swann writes on page 64 of The Architecture of the Universe (italics indicate edits as compared to The Urantia Book, bolding indicates deletions):

Starting from any one of them [i.e., chemical elements], and noting some property such as the melting point, for example, the property would change as we went along the row, but as we continued it would gradually come back to the condition very similar to that which we started ... The eighth element was in many respects like the first, the ninth like the second, the tenth like the third, and so on. Such a slate of affairs point[s] not only to a varied internal structure, but also to a certain harmony in that variation suggestive of some organized plan in building the atom.

Contrast with The Urantia Book's version:

Starting from any one element, after noting some one property, such a quality will exchange for six consecutive elements, but on reaching the eighth, it tends to reappear, that is, the eighth chemically active element resembles the first, the ninth the second, and so on. Such a fact of the physical world unmistakably points to the sevenfold constitution of ancestral energy and is indicative of the fundamental reality of the sevenfold diversity of the creations of time and space.

Block and many believers do not see the use of human source materials as plagiarism. Block writes:

One probable reason that the human sources were left undisguised was to enable students to discern, through comparative analysis, how this coordination of planetary knowledge was actually effected. As mentioned above, the initial analyses have already proved tremendously illuminating in this regard. Another reason was to keep us aware of the book’s anchorage in a specific time and place. While a very large part of the book is of timeless value and perennial applicability, some of its discussions directly address and respond to the world situation of the early 20th century. Thus, every generation will have to determine the relevance and applicability of certain of the book’s teachings to its own situation. Emerging from all these discoveries is the gratifying realization that the Urantia Book is exactly what its authors claim it to be....

Adherents

There is no way to gauge how many "adherents" there may be as there is no central organization to census. Informal study groups "tend to sprout, ripen, then vanish or splinter" and have not been counted reliably. Readers sometimes join study groups after reading on their own for years or decades, others join them soon after developing an interest in the book, while "for most, worship remains as individual as the act of reading." Disagreements over the legal ownership of the book, its interpretation, and the reception of new revelations have led to some splintering, though these disagreements appear to have been settled to the satisfaction of most adherents. The movement generally incorporates a nonsectarian view, contending that individuals with different religious backgrounds can receive the book's teachings as an enrichment rather than as a contradiction of their faiths.

Sarah Lewis notes that, "The Urantia Revelation is not securing legitimacy through historically known and accepted means to any great degree, nor is it even using common language that would increase the likelihood of understanding and therefore acceptance. It introduces new concepts and a new language, and this does not make acceptance any easier." She assesses that the movement is uncontroversial compared to other ones, "lacking the zealous proselytizing found within many other groups", and that it is therefore likely to remain small and unaffected by opposing views.[2]

Urantia Foundation advocated a "slow growth" policy in the past and had not significantly marketed the book. Sales by Urantia Foundation went from 7,000 in 1990 to 24,700 in 1997, and steadily increased to nearly 38,000 in 2000, an "upturn that seems to represent a genuine trend rather than just some spike on a sales chart", however by 2006 the foundation reported worldwide annual sales of 13,380 copies. Approximately half of the books distributed by Urantia Foundation are in languages other than English, particularly Spanish and Russian. Since the book was determined to be in the public domain in 2001, other organizations, such as The Urantia Book Fellowship under the publishing name Uversa Press, have also published the book. They have sold over 15,000 copies since 2002.[citation needed] They estimate that more than half a million free audio files have been downloaded from various Urantia websites in the last few years.[citation needed]

The International Urantia Association had twenty-six reader associations worldwide as of 2002, and the Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly the Urantia Brotherhood, founded in 1955 with Urantia Foundation as the original social fraternal organization of believers) claimed roughly twelve hundred official members, with the highest concentrations in the West of the United States and the Sun Belt, especially California, Colorado, Florida, and Texas. It appears an increasing number of people are forming study groups, participating in Internet discussion groups, and hosting or visiting websites about it. Reader conferences take place around the world.