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WHEN I first found the Urantia Book in
1977 and began reading it on my own, I loved the idea that I could “be
religious” and worship God without having to join an organization.
[Read my story here.] It was just me and God and the good deeds we
could do together. I pictured the “true church” as being made up of
billions of such diverse individuals, all dominated by one will—God’s
will. This was the ultimate freedom of religion, and it felt right. I can
still remember the shock when, after buying my own copy of the book (I had
been reading my brother’s), a leaflet fell out promoting the Urantia
Brotherhood with a capital B. Wasn’t the “brotherhood of believers” in our
hearts, with a lowercase b? Who were these people who were organizing this
Brotherhood? And why? It went against my grain and troubled me a lot.
But I hungered to meet other readers, and in those
pre-Internet days the only way I could find them was by writing a letter
to the Chicago address in the front of the book. I received a
reply from Emma Christensen, who had been around since the beginning,
putting me in touch with Julia Fenderson, who led a group of readers in
the Los Angeles area
[read Julia's letter]. They were all members of the First Urantia
Society of Los Angeles, the local chapter of the Brotherhood, and they met
monthly. I was assured that the group was more like a book club than a
church or a new religion, that there were no rituals or traditions, and
that joining would put me on the mailing list and keep me in touch with
these wonderful people. I became a member even though I had never joined
anything before in my life.
Giving a talk on the day I joined FUSLA. Behind me
(left to right) are Julia Fenderson,
Kermit Anderson, and Gregory Weydevu (who joined on the same day).
My name was Saskia Palay at the time.
For about a year I attended local study groups, did
volunteer work on the Agondonter newsletter, and received mail from
“headquarters” in Chicago, treasuring every pamphlet and piece of paper as
holy writ. I visited Julia often and learned about Dr. Sadler and the
origins of the Book, a subject that endlessly fascinated me. I found out
that there were two separate organizations, the Foundation to publish the
book and the Brotherhood as the social arm. To me, it sounded like one
big, happy organization with no dividing line. I’d had reservations
beforehand, but once a member I felt quite happy to be part of such a
select group of individuals, more so after discovering how rare it was for
someone to accept the revelation. It made sense that there would need to
be a “clearinghouse” to put readers in touch with one another to form
study groups, to organize conferences and encourage the formation of teams
for spreading the good news.
Then, one day around 1979, something terrible happened.
I opened a fat envelope announcing the severance of a Urantia group in
Houston, Texas, from the people in Chicago. [Read correspondence related
to the Houston affair
here
and here]
The tone was unspiritual. I was shattered. Was there trouble in Paradise?
If a serious problem existed, why couldn’t it have been worked out in such
a way that it set an example of how those in possession of higher
knowledge dealt with friction and disharmony? Why did they have to "go to
law" against each other?
Everyone I questioned about it talked a party line. I
couldn’t understand what the Texas people had done to be expelled, and I
was left feeling embarrassed for "headquarters." To preach the gospel but
not act it out was a mockery. Right then I wanted to un-join, but at the
same time I needed to stay connected to my new soulmates. While my
enthusiasm for the Urantia Book itself knew no bounds, I lost interest in
attending official meetings. Whenever I bought someone a Urantia Book I
would first remove and discard the leaflet inviting the new reader to join
the “tainted” Brotherhood.
Another thing that bothered me was a budding
traditionalism at Urantia gatherings. Jesus had declared that he was
reducing all rituals down to one—a supper to be held in memory of him. To
me, this meant we should all gather for a big, festive meal, brought
together by our common understanding of higher universe laws. Instead, at
the Los Angeles gatherings for the August 21 Jesus’ birthday celebration,
a goblet was passed around and the holder was expected to say something
inspirational about Jesus. The first time it seemed like a nice thing to
do and I went along with it, but when this happened for the second and
third time, following certain rules that someone had established, alarm
bells rang inside me. This was a cultlike ritual, and if someone didn’t
put a stop to it, or do something to make it different each time, it would
become associated with the Book and scare away honest seekers who might be
offended by it. My reaction was to boycott all gatherings where the goblet
was to be passed. Few openly agreed with my stance, or were able to see
the future negative repercussions of what, to them, was a beautiful
tribute to Jesus.
Notwithstanding the Master's effort thus to establish this new sacrament
of the remembrance, those who followed after him in the intervening
centuries saw to it that his express desire was effectively thwarted in
that his simple spiritual symbolism of that last night in the flesh has
been reduced to precise interpretations and subjected to the almost
mathematical precision of a set formula. Of all Jesus' teachings none have
become more tradition-standardized.[1492]
For the next sixteen years my involvement with the
movement was relatively low-key. I married a reader named Andy Raevouri
who, it later turned out, had only been briefly and superficially
interested in the Jesus papers. I heard through the grapevine about other
lawsuits and about the disgrace and downfall of the cult of Vern Bennom
Grimsley, and I was vaguely aware of the 1989 “split” between the Urantia
Foundation and the Urantia Brotherhood. I became so disenchanted that I
even stopped opening their mail.
***
In 1983 I had created a study aid called “The
Evolution of Life on Earth,” which depicted my concept of how all life on
our planet was interrelated.
[Click here to see it.] While crude, it was helpful and quite popular.
I printed up five hundred copies and managed to distribute most of them
over the years.
Showing my newly printed evolution chart to Polly
Friedman in 1983
I had practically forgotten about it when around 1994 it
received a revival of sorts by being offered through the now-defunct Good
Cheer Press catalog, produced by the Jesusonian Foundation. This triggered
a series of events that brought me back into the movement. I joined a
local study group and made some new friends, including Paula Thompson of
Jesusonian. Early in 1997 I contacted Urantia Foundation to buy a copy of
the French translation of the UB, and during my conversation with
Foundation representative Bob Solone it came up that I was the creator of
the evolution chart, for which the Foundation had had requests. Bob told
me how much he liked it and that the Foundation had been trying to locate
me, that they were interested in publishing and distributing it. I was
flattered and made arrangements to spend a week in Chicago, combining the
revision of my chart with volunteer work at the legendary 533 Diversey
Parkway.
Around the same time I received an invitation for the
fortieth anniversary reunion party of the First Urantia Society of Los
Angeles, of which I was apparently still a member although I hadn’t paid
dues for many years. It was to take place June 24, 1997, at the
Renaissance Hotel near the Los Angeles airport. Thinking it would be fun
to see all those old faces again, I decided to attend what turned out to
be a milestone event in my life. Here is where I met my future partner,
Matthew Block. Matthew was working for the Fellowship (formerly the
Brotherhood) in Chicago and was present in an official capacity.
At this event I was shocked by the reaction I received when I mentioned
that I’d soon be going to Chicago to visit the folks at 533. I’d had no
idea how bitter the split was—had barely known the difference between the
Foundation and the Brotherhood/Fellowship. The last time I had seen former
FUSLA president Scott Forsythe was in the late ’70s, as he was leaving Los
Angeles to work at headquarters in Chicago. “How are things at the
Foundation?” I asked innocently. Scott looked at me as if I had marbles in
my head. I made a few similar faux pas before realizing that I had
stumbled into a war zone and had better watch my words. The deep-seated
animosity between the two camps could only spell disaster for our
revelation, and I knew I had to get involved, to do something to try to
heal this wound.
I also began to wonder if it was wise to let the Foundation take over my
evolution chart, which merely represented one person’s simplified version
of a complex subject. Matthew Block had pointed out some flaws in the
chart. I saw that no matter how much it was corrected and polished up, it
would never be good enough to carry the three-concentric-circles logo. And
worse, innocent readers might be misled into believing it to be an
official interpretation, which would stifle their own creative attempts to
visualize the subject. The Foundation, it became clear to me, was to deal
strictly with the primary work—the unadulterated and inviolate text of the
Urantia Book and its translations—and should leave secondary and
derivative works to others. I wrote them a letter saying so
[click here to read it]. However, as I had already booked air and
hotel, I told them I was coming to Chicago to visit anyway, to meet them
and do whatever volunteer work they had for me.
Blissfully ignorant of the real factors that led to the split and who was
“good” or “bad,” I spent a wonderful week in Chicago, staying at the
nearby Surf Hotel. Every day I would go in to 533, where I met and fell in
love with Executive Director Tonia Baney and her husband Steve, Australian
volunteers Trevor and Kathleen Swadling, Foundation staff Bob Solone and
Damian and Joan Bondi, and two visitors—California reader Jane Ploetz and
Finnish translator Seppo Kanerva. Tonia assigned me the task of
double-checking the UB quotes which the submitters of secondary works had
used in their books, setting me up in a back room with a computer. Every
day as we worked and ate together, we discussed the spiritual and
political aspects of the revelation and had a great time laughing and
getting to know each other.
Having already been exposed to the Fellowship’s feelings about the split,
I now got the Foundation’s angle. Just weeks ago, they told me, a court
had reversed an earlier decision that had placed the book in the public
domain, and the Foundation now had the copyright back. The atmosphere at
533 was one of jubilation and confidence.
I also learned that the Foundation, after the split, had created its own
new social organization—the International Urantia Association (IUA)—to
carry the trademarked logo and the name “Urantia,” and to disseminate the
teachings in “an orderly fashion,” as a substitute for the disenfranchised
Brotherhood. The Foundation, it seemed, now had everything: a book
publishing monopoly and an official membership organization pledged to
support its policies and procedures. The Fellowship, by contrast, was left
with its current members and supporters, but with little chance for
growth. Most potential members appeared only after contacting the address
in the front of the book. Since the Foundation listed only the name of its
own organization and no longer shared new readers’ names with the
Fellowship, the Fellowship’s life support had been cut off and it was now
just a matter of time before it passed into history. What troubled me most
about this was that the IUA, like the Brotherhood before it, had been
artificially created by a tiny group of people to be the "authentic"
organization, representing a revelation meant for the entire world. With
enough support, it could grow into a large but exclusive religious
organization like the Catholic Church.
There were many issues that I didn’t agree with the Foundation on, and I
told them so. For instance, I understood the mandate in the Declaration of
Trust, to preserve the text inviolate, as applying only to the Foundation
and not to other groups or individuals. The Foundation’s mission, I
believed, was to continue to publish the complete book, even if others
split it up. If the trustees could see it my way, it would relieve them of
their “duty” to go around policing what the rest of the readership was
doing with the revelation, and still be faithful to their trust.
Another matter that I couldn’t comprehend was the Foundation’s ownership
of the concentric circles logo. If this was the cause of so much strife,
why couldn’t the trustees release it to the world and adopt another symbol
for the work they were doing? It’s true that Melchizedek wore this emblem
on his breastplate to represent himself in a barbaric world, but Jesus did
not identify himself with the circles; he came to wean us away from such
material icons and fetishes. Not surprisingly, nobody took my suggestion
seriously. (At that time I thought it would be a good idea to use the
concentric-circles symbol to signify the full and unadulterated text, for
all publishers of the revelation, like the Good Housekeeping Seal of
Approval, but I have since changed my mind. That would be a recipe for
more litigation, as those who believe this symbol should be free for all
would rebel and taunt the Foundation by using it to provoke another
lawsuit.)
On Tuesday evening, a study group was held in the room on the second floor
of 533 where the historic Forum meetings had taken place. I came away from
my visit satisfied that, although we didn’t see eye to eye on very much,
all involved were sincere believers in and workers for the revelation.
Visiting the Tuesday night study group at 533. From
left: Bob Solone, Trevor Swadling,
Steve Baney, ?, Saskia Raevouri, Tonia Baney, Kathleen Swadling, ?, Jane
Ploetz, ?.
Back home in Los Angeles, I reconnected with the local Urantia
community by attending a weekly study group at the home of Hal and Lucille
Kettell, in Arcadia. In addition, the Kettells hosted monthly Teaching
Mission sessions—a Sunday potluck followed by transmissions from teachers.
[Read about the history of the TeaM here.] The TeaM sessions were
wonderful social occasions and I grew to love these brothers and sisters
as sincere religionists devoted to doing God’s will and spreading the
benign virus of love. Few seemed politically inclined and most were
content within their own group. And the substance of the transmissions was
perfectly in line with the teachings of Jesus.
I also began hearing about other groups that were associating themselves
with the name Urantia. My UB friend Polly Friedman told me about a cult of
readers in Sedona—the Aquarian
Concepts Community—whose charismatic leader called himself Gabriel.
Polly was horrified when I immediately sent away for all of his books,
which claimed to be a continuation of the Urantia revelation. While
Gabriel's message didn’t “speak” to me, I could accept the possibility
that with all we have yet to learn in our eternal career, Gabriel’s path
may be what some are meant to take.
Around this time I became computer savvy, and the world of email
discussion groups opened up to me. Here I really got to taste the
hostility between the two “official” camps, and by studying the historical
documents posted by webmaster David Kantor on the Fellowship’s website, I
learned what had really led up to the split. [Read the history by
clicking here.]
Almost from the day Dr. Sadler died in 1969, the movement was marked by
litigation and a jockeying for control, from the Foundation’s copyright
suit against Robert Burton in 1970 to its 1997 suit against Kristen
Maaherra in Arizona. Burton was ousted from the Brotherhood because he
campaigned for a more affordable Urantia Book and other reforms;
Maaherra’s crime was her production and distribution of a searchable folio
version of the book. At first I was devastated for our revelation. How
could the publisher of a religious work sue its own flock? These people
were its friends, not its enemies. Was the Foundation acting in the name
of protecting the book, as it claimed, or was it guilty of
self-glorification, believing itself the chosen messenger authorized to
use the legal system to ward off all competition? Organizations dedicated
to spreading the teachings became defunct, having lost their resources
defending themselves in court—no match for the mighty Foundation, which
seemed to have unlimited funds for lawyers.
From what I could gather, the 1989 split was the result of the
Foundation's insistence that all activity be marketed with its own stamp,
and at its own pace. Its policy of "slow growth" seemed to be causing
"retarded growth." All secondary works or even talks given at Urantia
conferences which quoted from the Urantia Book had to be approved or
disapproved by a board who felt the revelation had been given over to
their charge, in the name of protecting it. Brotherhood societies who
opposed the Foundation's policies were branded as rebels and ordered to
remove the name "Urantia" from the work they were doing to avoid court
action. Both sides compared themselves to Van and Amadon, standing
steadfast for the truth.
As I read the documents leading up to the split, my original belief in
having no membership organization at all was reconfirmed. With the
Internet, people could find each other without having to go through the
intermediary of what looked like a cult with major baggage. I, like many
other concerned readers, wrote several posts and letters with suggestions
for “healing” the movement. [Click
here to read a sample.]
Sunday potluck at the Kettells circa 1997
In 1997, I met Norman Ingram at one of the Kettells’
potlucks. Norman had recently returned from South America, on an
independent mission of placing Urantia Books in libraries and universities
there. When he told me he needed funds to go to Africa on a similar
mission, I hit upon the idea of collecting everyone’s “how I found the
Urantia Book” stories via email, and publishing them in a book that could
be sold. My motives were: first, to raise money for Norman; second, to
bring under one umbrella all so-called enemies to show that they were
spiritual brothers under the skin; third, to provide a historical document
of how the Urantia Book had made its way into the world in its first few
decades; and fourth, to illustrate that it was unnecessary to have a
leading cult or organization in the movement—no IUA, no Fellowship, no
Aquarian Concepts Community. The “official” Urantia movement was made up
of many individual truth-seekers and small groups of like-minded kingdom
workers. This book would paint that picture better than anything else.
Over the next few months I waged an email campaign,
netting over two-hundred stories. With funds from the contributors’
preorders, I self-published the first edition of How I Found the Urantia
Book, and sold many copies. About $8,000 was raised and handed over to
Norman for his African mission, along with extra copies of HIFTUB for him
to use as an outreach tool. Working with hundreds of individuals to revise
and edit their stories for publication gave me the chance to understand
different paths and viewpoints, as well as make many new friends. [The
revised edition, with one hundred more stories, was published in 2002.]
In the late ’90s we began hearing rumblings of a drive
for unity within the movement. Past dealings of a secretive nature
between movement leaders were now being exposed for all to scrutinize;
and with the court cases more and more embarrassing information was
coming to light which was conveniently blamed on ousted past leaders,
such as Vern Grimsley and Martin Myers. This call for peace, however,
was doomed. Each side expected the other to bend and merge under its own
peculiar umbrella, in a cookie-cutter unity, not a unity with diversity.
They were not ready to relinquish control, accept each other as equals
and coexist harmoniously.
As the Foundation and the Brotherhood were busy
fighting it out like the Hatfields and the McCoys, another phenomenon
began developing on the sidelines. As long as the two majors had put up
a united front, the Teaching Mission and like groups had had no chance
to thrive. History shows that past factions which operated outside the
Foundation/Brotherhood establishment were quickly mowed down. Two
examples are
Urantian Research episode in 1971 and
the CUBS
tragedy of the late 1980s. But once the two main groups began to
focus all their resources and energies on each other, the field opened
for the true brotherhood of believers to come forward without fear of
persecution. The two big organizations were not exactly blind to the
existence of these other groups, but in the aura of their
self-importance they paid scant attention except, in the Foundation’s
case, to denounce them as the “strange and queer isms” the early leaders
had been warned about. The following remarks given to early leaders
could apply to any Urantia Book group, including the IUA:
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Many strange isms and queer groups ... will seek to
attach themselves to The URANTIA Book and its far-flung influence.
Your most trying experiences will be with such groups who so loudly
acclaim their belief in the teachings of the Book and who will so
persistently seek to attach themselves to the movement. Great wisdom
will be required to guard against the distracting and distorting
influence of these multifarious groups and from equally distracting
and disturbing individuals, some well intentioned and some sinister,
who will strive to become a part of the authentic constituency of the
URANTIA movement.
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A chilling case of what a Foundation-supported group can
evolve into was profiled in the Summer 2002 USUA Messenger. In contrast to
a statement on the IUA site that the organization "welcomes people of all
faiths, races, and nationalities," the Urantia Association of Florida will
not accept members who belong to the Teaching Mission, who mention an
interest in A Course in Miracles or who retain a belief in reincarnation.
[Read both items here.] Had these IUA people misunderstood the
teachings of Jesus? Didn't they realize Team'ers were disseminating the
teachings in their own way? Did the IUA consider itself so special that it
required the gospel to be preached exclusively under its own narrow
banner? And how could they reach out across barriers when association was
forbidden with those whose philosophies were different or perhaps in
transition?
On a personal note, in 2002 I was hounded out of the
Foundation's email discussion lists (urantiat and the forum list) when I
announced that my new UB-related study aid, "How Man and the Ape are
Related," was available for free on squarecircles.com. The list-op accused
me of "peddling my wares" and bringing inappropriate subject matter to the
Urantia Book study list. This accusation paved the way for the more
fundamentalist posters to denounce me publicly for daring to create a
visual aid to help understand the teachings. ("Isn't the book complete as
is? Do we really need to add anything to it?") Prior to that, macho
members had charged me with unpatriotic behavior for my stance against
Bush's war on Iraq, and at an earlier time I withstood Rottweiler-like
attacks after I suggested that communication with the dead could be true,
that I wanted to leave the door open to the possibility. While these lists
are supposedly open to all, only "IUA-approved thinking" is tolerated.
Does the Foundation want the intimidating conduct of its supporters to be
the first thing new readers encounter on the Internet?
That the IUA was the legally established representative
of an epochal revelation designed to build bridges on our already-backward
planet was a travesty to me. Its propped-up “teachers and leaders” were so
intolerant that only God’s angels could have orchestrated such a scenario
to prevent the organization from growing. “Truth-seekers need not apply,”
seemed to be their motto. One day I had a comforting insight that it was
not God’s will for such an insular group to be given celestial help, and
my fears that the fabricated IUA would dominate the movement were quickly
dispelled.
As opposed to the IUA, which threatened to disfellowship
anyone caught “cheating,” the Fellowship began striving for an image of
inclusiveness. When it became apparent that groups were forming and
growing “on the outside,” I heard someone on the General Council suggest
that the Fellowship offer “franchises” to these groups, under the
Fellowship name. For instance, the Teaching Mission would have its own
charter as a component of the Fellowship. With membership dropping off
steadily, and with no easy way to gain new members, the Fellowship had no
choice but to make moves to attract the unaffiliated flock to increase its
numbers.
But they did not understand the new “movement.” With the
Internet, it was no longer necessary to join an organization to find
compatible friends. The TeaM’ers had no intention of organizing themselves
into a group with regulations and bylaws. They could stay in touch with
one another via computer, hold their own conferences and follow their own
rules—or have no rules at all. Rob Crickett and his supporters were free
to do the same. The big organizations had made themselves obsolete, and by
dividing they had weakened themselves so badly that they were unable to
fight the tide of new and vigorous groups. They were now only as good as
the work they were doing, or preventing each other from doing.
In 2001 a milestone in the movement occurred when Harry
McMullan's Michael Foundation, publisher of Jesus—A New Revelation,
won a lawsuit brought against him by Urantia Foundation. [For details of
the case,
click here; for readers' viewpoints pro and con,
click here.] When the jury returned
the verdict, the
revelation was returned to public domain, and all attempts by Urantia
Foundation to regain the copyright have failed.
Take a look at the great Urantia
Supreme Being (pictured at the beginning of this article) as it exists
in 2003. The three concentric circles are in the center. No group can
occupy this sacred spot, and the Foundation must eventually relinquish the
universal symbol if it truly seeks peace and harmony. All must divest
themselves of ideas of religious sovereignty and learn to coexist
peacefully inside the big circle, to work at what they are led to do, and
to recognize, support and encourage one another. The only competition
should be in the doing of good works. There is room for all and room to
grow. All are children of God and a part of the Supreme Being, and all
have their roles to play. No longer are the Foundation or the Fellowship
greater or lesser than any of the other slices of the pie. "Each according
to his works."
With all the talk of Urantians reaching out to Muslims,
Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Baptists and other religionists, we will not
be taken seriously if we don’t first make peace with ourselves, by getting
to know and love everyone inside the big circle. This can be accomplished
if we stop trying to convert and control one another and instead begin
accepting our differences, as in the days of Cymboyton, in Urmia. If
Urantians could regard the concentric circles as the symbolic Cymboyton
presiding over our movement, we would truly have unity with diversity. And
then would we be ready to face the other great religions—and the New Age
movement as well—as a fine example of a group that knows how to put higher
teachings into practice.
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The Urmia religionists lived together in
comparative peace and tranquility because they had fully surrendered
all their notions of religious sovereignty. Spiritually, they all
believed in a sovereign God; socially, full and unchallengeable
authority rested in their presiding head—Cymboyton. They well knew
what would happen to any teacher who assumed to lord it over his
fellow teachers. There can be no lasting religious peace on Urantia
until all religious groups freely surrender all their notions of
divine favor, chosen people, and religious sovereignty. Only when God
the Father becomes supreme will men become religious brothers and live
together in religious peace on earth.
[1487]
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The split was necessary to allow
the true brotherhood of believers to emerge and flourish. This could
hardly have happened had the two organizations found a way to stay united
and strong. The split was a blessing in disguise, a perfect example of how
the seraphic planetary government operates behind the scenes to “make
things what they ought to be.”
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