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The universes of time and space are gradual in development; the
progression of life--terrestrial or celestial--is neither arbitrary nor
magical. Cosmic evolution may not always be understandable
(predictable), but it is strictly non-accidental.
The biologic unit of material life is the protoplasmic
cell, the communal association of chemical, electrical, and other basic
energies. The chemical formulas differ in each system, and the technique
of living cell reproduction is slightly different in each local
universe, but the Life Carriers are always the living catalyzers who
initiate the primordial reactions of material life; they are the
instigators of the energy circuits of living matter.
All the worlds of a local system disclose unmistakable
physical kinship; nevertheless, each planet has its own scale of life,
no two worlds being exactly alike in plant and animal endowment. These
planetary variations in the system life types result from the decisions
of the Life Carriers. But these beings are neither capricious nor
whimsical; the universes are conducted in accordance with law and order.
The laws of Nebadon are the divine mandates of Salvington, and the
evolutionary order of life in Satania is in consonance with the
evolutionary pattern of Nebadon.
Evolution is the rule of human development, but the
process itself varies greatly on different worlds. Life is sometimes
initiated in one center, sometimes in three, as it was on Urantia. On
the atmospheric worlds it usually has a marine origin, but not always;
much depends on the physical status of a planet. The Life Carriers have
great latitude in their function of life initiation.
In the development of planetary life the vegetable form
always precedes the animal and is quite fully developed before the
animal patterns differentiate. All animal types are developed from the
basic patterns of the preceding vegetable kingdom of living things; they
are not separately organized.
The early stages of life evolution are not altogether in
conformity with your present-day views. Mortal man is not an
evolutionary accident. There is a precise system, a universal law,
which determines the unfolding of the planetary life plan on the spheres
of space. Time and the production of large numbers of a species are not
the controlling influences. Mice reproduce much more rapidly than
elephants, yet elephants evolve more rapidly than mice.
The process of planetary evolution is orderly and
controlled. The development of higher organisms from lower groupings of
life is not accidental. Sometimes evolutionary progress is temporarily
delayed by the destruction of certain favorable lines of life plasm
carried in a selected species. It often requires ages upon ages to
recoup the damage occasioned by the loss of a single superior strain of
human heredity. These selected and superior strains of living protoplasm
should be jealously and intelligently guarded when once they make their
appearance. And on most of the inhabited worlds these superior
potentials of life are valued much more highly than on Urantia.
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2. Planetary Physical
Types |
There is a standard
and basic pattern of vegetable and animal life in
each system. But the Life Carriers are oftentimes confronted with the
necessity of modifying these basic patterns to conform to the varying
physical conditions which confront them on numerous worlds of space.
They foster a generalized system type of mortal creature, but there are
seven distinct physical types as well as thousands upon thousands of
minor variants of these seven outstanding differentiations:
1. Atmospheric types.
2. Elemental types.
3. Gravity types.
4. Temperature types.
5. Electric types.
6. Energizing types.
7. Unnamed types.
The Satania system contains all of these types and
numerous intermediate groups, although some are very sparingly
represented.
1. The atmospheric types. The physical
differences of the worlds of mortal habitation are chiefly determined by
the nature of the atmosphere; other influences which contribute to the
planetary differentiation of life are relatively minor.
The present atmospheric status of Urantia is almost
ideal for the support of the breathing type of man, but the human type
can be so modified that it can live on both the superatmospheric and the
subatmospheric planets. Such modifications also extend to the animal
life, which differs greatly on the various inhabited spheres. There is a
very great modification of animal orders on both the sub- and the
superatmospheric worlds.
Of the atmospheric types in Satania, about two and
one-half per cent are subbreathers, about five per cent superbreathers,
and over ninety-one per cent are mid-breathers, altogether accounting
for ninety-eight and one-half per cent of the Satania worlds.
Beings such as the Urantia races are classified as
mid-breathers; you represent the average or typical breathing order of
mortal existence. If intelligent creatures should exist on a planet with
an atmosphere similar to that of your near neighbor, Venus, they would
belong to the superbreather group, while those inhabiting a planet with
an atmosphere as thin as that of your outer neighbor, Mars, would be
denominated subbreathers.
If mortals should inhabit a planet devoid of air, like
your moon, they would belong to the separate order of nonbreathers. This
type represents a radical or extreme adjustment to the planetary
environment and is separately considered. Nonbreathers account for the
remaining one and one-half per cent of Satania worlds.
2. The elemental types. These differentiations
have to do with the relation of mortals to water, air, and land, and
there are four distinct species of intelligent life as they are related
to these habitats. The Urantia races are of the land order.
It is quite impossible for you to envisage the
environment which prevails during the early ages of some worlds. These
unusual conditions make it necessary for the evolving animal life to
remain in its marine nursery habitat for longer periods than on those
planets which very early provide a hospitable land-and-atmosphere
environment. Conversely, on some worlds of the superbreathers, when the
planet is not too large, it is sometimes expedient to provide for a
mortal type which can readily negotiate atmospheric passage. These air
navigators sometimes intervene between the water and land groups, and
they always live in a measure upon the ground, eventually evolving into
land dwellers.
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3. Worlds of the
Nonbreathers |
The majority of inhabited planets are peopled with the breathing type of
intelligent beings. But there are also orders of mortals who are able to
live on worlds with little or no air. Of the Orvonton inhabited worlds
this type amounts to less than seven per cent. In Nebadon this
percentage is less than three. In all Satania there are only nine such
worlds.
There are so very few of the nonbreather type of
inhabited worlds in Satania because this more recently organized section
of Norlatiadek still abounds in meteoric space bodies; and worlds
without a protective friction atmosphere are subject to incessant
bombardment by these wanderers. Even some of the comets consist of
meteor swarms, but as a rule they are disrupted smaller bodies of
matter.
Millions upon millions of meteorites enter the
atmosphere of Urantia daily, coming in at the rate of almost two hundred
miles a second. On the nonbreathing worlds the advanced races must do
much to protect themselves from meteor damage by making electrical
installations which operate to consume or shunt the meteors. Great
danger confronts them when they venture beyond these protected zones.
These worlds are also subject to disastrous electrical storms of a
nature unknown on Urantia. During such times of tremendous energy
fluctuation the inhabitants must take refuge in their special structures
of protective insulation.
Life on the worlds of the nonbreathers is radically
different from what it is on Urantia. The nonbreathers do not eat food
or drink water as do the Urantia races. The reactions of the nervous
system, the heat-regulating mechanism, and the metabolism of these
specialized peoples are radically different from such functions of
Urantia mortals. Almost every act of living, aside from reproduction,
differs, and even the methods of procreation are somewhat different.
On the nonbreathing worlds the animal species are
radically unlike those found on the atmospheric planets. The
nonbreathing plan of life varies from the technique of existence on an
atmospheric world; even in survival their peoples differ, being
candidates for Spirit fusion. Nevertheless, these beings enjoy life and
carry forward the activities of the realm with the same relative trials
and joys that are experienced by the mortals living on atmospheric
worlds. In mind and character the nonbreathers do not differ from other
mortal types.
You would be more than interested in the planetary
conduct of this type of mortal because such a race of beings inhabits a
sphere in close proximity to Urantia.
4. Evolutionary Will Creatures
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There are great differences between the mortals of the
different worlds, even among those belonging to the same intellectual
and physical types, but all mortals of will dignity are erect animals,
bipeds.
There are six basic evolutionary races: three
primary--red, yellow, and blue; and three secondary--orange, green, and
indigo. Most inhabited worlds have all of these races, but many of the
three-brained planets harbor only the three primary types. Some local
systems also have only these three races.
The average special physical-sense endowment of human
beings is twelve, though the special senses of the three-brained mortals
are extended slightly beyond those of the one- and two-brained types;
they can see and hear considerably more than the Urantia races.
Young are usually born singly, multiple births being the
exception, and the family life is fairly uniform on all types of
planets. Sex equality prevails on all advanced worlds; male and female
are equal in mind endowment and spiritual status. We do not regard a
planet as having emerged from barbarism so long as one sex seeks to
tyrannize over the other. This feature of creature experience is always
greatly improved after the arrival of a Material Son and Daughter.
Seasons and temperature variations occur on all
sunlighted and sun-heated planets. Agriculture is universal on all
atmospheric worlds; tilling the soil is the one pursuit that is common
to the advancing races of all such planets.
Mortals all have the same general struggles with
microscopic foes in their early days, such as you now experience on
Urantia, though perhaps not so extensive. The length of life varies on
the different planets from twenty-five years on the primitive worlds to
near five hundred on the more advanced and older spheres.
Human beings are all gregarious, both tribal and racial.
These group segregations are inherent in their origin and constitution.
Such tendencies can be modified only by advancing civilization and by
gradual spiritualization. The social, economic, and governmental
problems of the inhabited worlds vary in accordance with the age of the
planets and the degree to which they have been influenced by the
successive sojourns of the divine Sons.
Mind is the bestowal of the Infinite Spirit and
functions quite the same in diverse environments. The mind of mortals is
akin, regardless of certain structural and chemical differences which
characterize the physical natures of the will creatures of the local
systems. Regardless of personal or physical planetary differences, the
mental life of all these various orders of mortals is very similar, and
their immediate careers after death are very much alike.
But mortal mind without immortal spirit cannot survive.
The mind of man is mortal; only the bestowed spirit is immortal.
Survival is dependent on spiritualization by the ministry of the
Adjuster--on the birth and evolution of the immortal soul; at least,
there must not have developed an antagonism towards the Adjuster's
mission of effecting the spiritual transformation of the material mind.
5. Planetary Series of
Mortals
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It will be somewhat difficult to make an adequate
portrayal of the planetary series of mortals because you know so little
about them, and because there are so many variations. Mortal creatures
may, however, be studied from numerous viewpoints, among which are the
following:
1. Adjustment to planetary environment.
2. Brain-type series.
3. Spirit-reception series.
4. Planetary-mortal epochs.
5. Creature-kinship serials.
6. Adjuster-fusion series.
7. Techniques of terrestrial escape.
The inhabited spheres of the seven superuniverses are
peopled with mortals who simultaneously classify in some one or more
categories of each of these seven generalized classes of evolutionary
creature life. But even these general classifications make no provision
for such beings as midsoniters nor for certain other forms of
intelligent life. The inhabited worlds, as they have been presented in
these narratives, are peopled with evolutionary mortal creatures, but
there are other life forms.
1. Adjustment to planetary environment. There are
three general groups of inhabited worlds from the standpoint of the
adjustment of creature life to the planetary environment: the normal
adjustment group, the radical adjustment group, and the experimental
group.
Normal adjustments to planetary conditions follow the
general physical patterns previously considered. The worlds of the
nonbreathers typify the radical or extreme adjustment, but other types
are also included in this group. Experimental worlds are usually ideally
adapted to the typical life forms, and on these decimal planets the Life
Carriers attempt to produce beneficial variations in the standard life
designs. Since your world is an experimental planet, it differs markedly
from its sister spheres in Satania; many forms of life have appeared on
Urantia that are not found elsewhere; likewise are many common species
absent from your planet.
In the universe of Nebadon, all the life-modification
worlds are serially linked together and constitute a special domain of
universe affairs which is given attention by designated administrators;
and all of these experimental worlds are periodically inspected by a
corps of universe directors whose chief is the veteran finaliter known
in Satania as Tabamantia.
2. Brain-type series. The one physical uniformity
of mortals is the brain and nervous system; nevertheless, there are
three basic organizations of the brain mechanism: the one-, the two-,
and the three-brained types. Urantians are of the two-brained type,
somewhat more imaginative, adventurous, and philosophical than the
one-brained mortals but somewhat less spiritual, ethical, and worshipful
than the three-brained orders. These brain differences characterize even
the prehuman animal existences.
From the two-hemisphere type of the Urantian cerebral
cortex you can, by analogy, grasp something of the one-brained type. The
third brain of the three-brained orders is best conceived as an
evolvement of your lower or rudimentary form of brain, which is
developed to the point where it functions chiefly in control of physical
activities, leaving the two superior brains free for higher engagements:
one for intellectual functions and the other for the spiritual-counterparting
activities of the Thought Adjuster.
While the terrestrial attainments of the one-brained
races are slightly limited in comparison with the two-brained orders,
the older planets of the three-brained group exhibit civilizations that
would astound Urantians, and which would somewhat shame yours by
comparison. In mechanical development and material civilization, even in
intellectual progress, the two-brained mortal worlds are able to equal
the three-brained spheres. But in the higher control of mind and
development of intellectual and spiritual reciprocation, you are
somewhat inferior.
All such comparative estimates concerning the
intellectual progress or the spiritual attainments of any world or group
of worlds should in fairness recognize planetary age; much, very much,
depends on age, the help of the biologic uplifters, and the subsequent
missions of the various orders of the divine Sons.
While the three-brained peoples are capable of a
slightly higher planetary evolution than either the one- or two-brained
orders, all have the same type of life plasm and carry on planetary
activities in very similar ways, much as do human beings on Urantia.
These three types of mortals are distributed throughout the worlds of
the local systems. In the majority of cases planetary conditions had
very little to do with the decisions of the Life Carriers to project
these varied orders of mortals on the different worlds; it is a
prerogative of the Life Carriers thus to plan and execute.
These three orders stand on an equal footing in the
ascension career. Each must traverse the same intellectual scale of
development, and each must master the same spiritual tests of
progression. The system administration and the constellation overcontrol
of these different worlds are uniformly free from discrimination; even
the regimes of the Planetary Princes are identical.
3. Spirit-reception series. There are three
groups of mind design as related to contact with spirit affairs. This
classification does not refer to the one-, two-, and three-brained
orders of mortals; it refers primarily to gland chemistry, more
particularly to the organization of certain glands comparable to the
pituitary bodies. The races on some worlds have one gland, on others
two, as do Urantians, while on still other spheres the races have three
of these unique bodies. The inherent imagination and spiritual
receptivity is definitely influenced by this differential chemical
endowment.
Of the spirit-reception types, sixty-five per cent are
of the second group, like the Urantia races. Twelve per cent are of the
first type, naturally less receptive, while twenty-three per cent are
more spiritually inclined during terrestrial life. But such distinctions
do not survive natural death; all of these racial differences pertain
only to the life in the flesh.
4. Planetary-mortal epochs. This classification
recognizes the succession of temporal dispensations as they affect man's
terrestrial status and his reception of celestial ministry.
Life is initiated on the planets by the Life Carriers,
who watch over its development until sometime after the evolutionary
appearance of mortal man. Before the Life Carriers leave a planet, they
duly install a Planetary Prince as ruler of the realm. With this ruler
there arrives a full quota of subordinate auxiliaries and ministering
helpers, and the first adjudication of the living and the dead is
simultaneous with his arrival.
With the emergence of human groupings, this Planetary
Prince arrives to inaugurate human civilization and to focalize human
society. Your world of confusion is no criterion of the early days of
the reign of the Planetary Princes, for it was near the beginning of
such an administration on Urantia that your Planetary Prince,
Caligastia, cast his lot with the rebellion of the System Sovereign,
Lucifer. Your planet has pursued a stormy course ever since.
On a normal evolutionary world, racial progress attains
its natural biologic peak during the regime of the Planetary Prince, and
shortly thereafter the System Sovereign dispatches a Material Son and
Daughter to that planet. These imported beings are of service as
biologic uplifters; their default on Urantia further complicated your
planetary history.
When the intellectual and ethical progress of a human
race has reached the limits of evolutionary development, there comes an
Avonal Son of Paradise on a magisterial mission; and later on, when the
spiritual status of such a world is nearing its limit of natural
attainment, the planet is visited by a Paradise bestowal Son. The chief
mission of a bestowal Son is to establish the planetary status, release
the Spirit of Truth for planetary function, and thus effect the
universal coming of the Thought Adjusters.
Here, again, Urantia deviates: There has never been a
magisterial mission on your world, neither was your bestowal Son of the
Avonal order; your planet enjoyed the signal honor of becoming the
mortal home planet of the Sovereign Son, Michael of Nebadon.
As a result of the ministry of all the successive orders
of divine sonship, the inhabited worlds and their advancing races begin
to approach the apex of planetary evolution. Such worlds now become ripe
for the culminating mission, the arrival of the Trinity Teacher Sons.
This epoch of the Teacher Sons is the vestibule to the final planetary
age--evolutionary utopia--the age of light and life.
This classification of human beings will receive
particular attention in a succeeding paper.
5. Creature-kinship serials. Planets are not only
organized vertically into systems, constellations, and so on, but the
universe administration also provides for horizontal groupings according
to type, series, and other relationships. This lateral administration of
the universe pertains more particularly to the co-ordination of
activities of a kindred nature which have been independently fostered on
different spheres. These related classes of universe creatures are
periodically inspected by certain composite corps of high personalities
presided over by long-experienced finaliters.
These kinship factors are manifest on all levels, for
kinship serials exist among nonhuman personalities as well as among
mortal creatures--even between human and superhuman orders. Intelligent
beings are vertically related in twelve great groups of seven major
divisions each. The co-ordination of these uniquely related groups of
living beings is probably effected by some not fully comprehended
technique of the Supreme Being.
6. Adjuster-fusion series. The spiritual
classification or grouping of all mortals during their prefusion
experience is wholly determined by the relation of the personality
status to the indwelling Mystery Monitor. Almost ninety per cent of the
inhabited worlds of Nebadon are peopled with Adjuster-fusion mortals in
contrast with a near-by universe where scarcely more than one half of
the worlds harbor beings who are Adjuster-indwelt candidates for eternal
fusion.
7. Techniques of terrestrial escape. There is
fundamentally only one way in which individual human life can be
initiated on the inhabited worlds, and that is through creature
procreation and natural birth; but there are numerous techniques whereby
man escapes his terrestrial status and gains access to the inward moving
stream of Paradise ascenders.
All of the differing
physical types and planetary
series of mortals alike enjoy the ministry of Thought Adjusters,
guardian angels, and the various orders of the messenger hosts of
the Infinite Spirit. All alike are liberated from the bonds of flesh
by the emancipation of natural death, and all alike go thence to the
morontia worlds of spiritual evolution and mind progress.
From time to time, on motion of the planetary
authorities or the system rulers, special resurrections of the
sleeping survivors are conducted. Such resurrections occur at least
every millennium of planetary time, when not all but "many of those
who sleep in the dust awake." These special resurrections are the
occasion for mobilizing special groups of ascenders for specific
service in the local universe plan of mortal ascension. There are
both practical reasons and sentimental associations connected with
these special resurrections.
Throughout the earlier ages of an inhabited world,
many are called to the mansion spheres at the special and the
millennial resurrections, but most survivors are repersonalized at
the inauguration of a new dispensation associated with the advent of
a divine Son of planetary service.
1. Mortals of the dispensational or group order
of survival. With the arrival of the first Adjuster on an
inhabited world the guardian seraphim also make their appearance;
they are indispensable to terrestrial escape. Throughout the
life-lapse period of the sleeping survivors the spiritual values and
eternal realities of their newly evolved and immortal souls are held
as a sacred trust by the personal or by the group guardian seraphim.
The group guardians of assignment to the sleeping
survivors always function with the judgment Sons on their world
advents. "He shall send his angels, and they shall gather together
his elect from the four winds." With each seraphim of assignment to
the repersonalization of a sleeping mortal there functions the
returned Adjuster, the same immortal Father fragment that lived in
him during the days in the flesh, and thus is identity restored and
personality resurrected. During the sleep of their subjects these
waiting Adjusters serve on Divinington; they never indwell another
mortal mind in this interim.
While the older worlds of mortal existence harbor
those highly developed and exquisitely spiritual types of human
beings who are virtually exempt from the morontia life, the earlier
ages of the animal-origin races are characterized by primitive
mortals who are so immature that fusion with their Adjusters is
impossible. The reawakening of these mortals is accomplished by the
guardian seraphim in conjunction with an individualized portion of
the immortal spirit of the Third Source and Center.
Thus are the sleeping survivors of a planetary age
repersonalized in the dispensational roll calls. But with regard to
the nonsalvable personalities of a realm, no immortal spirit is
present to function with the group guardians of destiny, and this
constitutes cessation of creature existence. While some of your
records have pictured these events as taking place on the planets of
mortal death, they all really occur on the mansion worlds.
2. Mortals of the individual orders of ascension.
The individual progress of human beings is measured by their
successive attainment and traversal (mastery) of the seven cosmic
circles. These circles of mortal progression are levels of
associated intellectual, social, spiritual, and cosmic-insight
values. Starting out in the seventh circle, mortals strive for the
first, and all who have attained the third immediately have personal
guardians of destiny assigned to them. These mortals may be
repersonalized in the morontia life independent of dispensational or
other adjudications.
Throughout the earlier ages of an evolutionary
world, few mortals go to judgment on the third day. But as the ages
pass, more and more the personal guardians of destiny are assigned
to the advancing mortals, and thus increasing numbers of these
evolving creatures are repersonalized on the first mansion world on
the third day after natural death. On such occasions the return of
the Adjuster signalizes the awakening of the human soul, and this is
the repersonalization of the dead just as literally as when the en
masse roll is called at the end of a dispensation on the
evolutionary worlds.
There are three groups of individual ascenders: The
less advanced land on the initial or first mansion world. The more
advanced group may take up the morontia career on any of the
intermediate mansion worlds in accordance with previous planetary
progression. The most advanced of these orders really begin their
morontia experience on the seventh mansion world.
3. Mortals of the probationary-dependent orders
of ascension. The arrival of an Adjuster constitutes identity in
the eyes of the universe, and all indwelt beings are on the roll
calls of justice. But temporal life on the evolutionary worlds is
uncertain, and many die in youth before choosing the Paradise
career. Such Adjuster-indwelt children and youths follow the parent
of most advanced spiritual status, thus going to the system
finaliter world (the probationary nursery) on the third day, at a
special resurrection, or at the regular millennial and
dispensational roll calls.
Children who die when too young to have Thought
Adjusters are repersonalized on the finaliter world of the local
systems concomitant with the arrival of either parent on the mansion
worlds. A child acquires physical entity at mortal birth, but in the
matter of survival all Adjusterless children are reckoned as still
attached to their parents.
In due course Thought Adjusters come to indwell
these little ones, while the seraphic ministry to both groups of the
probationary-dependent orders of survival is in general similar to
that of the more advanced parent or is equivalent to that of the
parent in case only one survives. Those attaining the third circle,
regardless of the status of their parents, are accorded personal
guardians.
Similar probation nurseries are maintained on the
finaliter spheres of the constellation and the universe headquarters
for the Adjusterless children of the primary and secondary modified
orders of ascenders.
4. Mortals of the secondary modified orders of
ascension. These are the progressive human beings of the
intermediate evolutionary worlds. As a rule they are not immune to
natural death, but they are exempt from passing through the seven
mansion worlds.
The less perfected group reawaken on the
headquarters of their local system, passing by only the mansion
worlds. The intermediate group go to the constellation training
worlds; they pass by the entire morontia regime of the local system.
Still farther on in the planetary ages of spiritual striving, many
survivors awaken on the constellation headquarters and there begin
the Paradise ascent.
But before any of these groups may go forward, they
must journey back as instructors to the worlds they missed, gaining
many experiences as teachers in those realms which they passed by as
students. They all subsequently proceed to Paradise by the ordained
routes of mortal progression.
5. Mortals of the primary modified order of
ascension. These mortals belong to the Adjuster-fused type of
evolutionary life, but they are most often representative of the
final phases of human development on an evolving world. These
glorified beings are exempt from passing through the portals of
death; they are submitted to Son seizure; they are translated from
among the living and appear immediately in the presence of the
Sovereign Son on the headquarters of the local universe.
These are the mortals who fuse with their Adjusters
during mortal life, and such Adjuster-fused personalities traverse
space freely before being clothed with morontia forms. These fused
souls go by direct Adjuster transit to the resurrection halls of the
higher morontia spheres, where they receive their initial morontia
investiture just as do all other mortals arriving from the
evolutionary worlds.
This primary modified order of mortal ascension may
apply to individuals in any of the planetary series from the lowest
to the highest stages of the Adjuster-fusion worlds, but it more
frequently functions on the older of these spheres after they have
received the benefits of numerous sojourns of the divine Sons.
With the establishment of the planetary era of light
and life, many go to the universe morontia worlds by the primary
modified order of translation. Further along in the advanced stages
of settled existence, when the majority of the mortals leaving a
realm are embraced in this class, the planet is regarded as
belonging to this series. Natural death becomes decreasingly
frequent on these spheres long settled in light and life.
[Presented by Melchizedek
of the Jerusem School of Planetary Administration.]
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