Episode:The Betrayal Begins on High (Part 1)
Lucifer was a brilliant primary Lanonandek Son of Nebadon, created and trained to be chief executive of a great system of inhabited worlds. From such a magnificent beginning, through evil and error, he embraced sin and succumbed to the urge of self. This fallen sovereign surrendered to the sophistry of spurious personal liberty, rejected universe allegiance, disregarded fraternal obligations, and became blind to cosmic relationships.
Keywords: Urantia, Rebellion, Sin, Sophistry, Lucifer
Summary by Kermit
Lucifer, at one time designated as one of the one hundred most able and brilliant personalities in more than seven hundred thousand of his kind, through error and evil, embraced sin and is now numbered as one of three System Sovereigns in Nebadon who have succumbed to the urge of self and surrendered to the sophistry of spurious personal liberty.
This study is not for mere historical interest, but to see how this path is open to all will creatures.
This transgression and downfall becomes possible because of a spiritual consciousness, not the lack of spiritual consciousness.
1. The Leaders of the Rebellion
The author provided biblical references in introducing the cast of characters of the insurrection. Our commentary was most helpful in understanding the etymology of the names given to the rebel leaders. Lucifer, system sovereign, and Satan his first lieutenant are primary Lanonandek Sons. Caligastia, deposed Planetary Prince of Urantia is a secondary Lanonandek, best known on Urantia as the “devil”. Abaddon, Caligastia’s chief of staff is believed to be a tertiary Lanonandek Son. Beelzebub was the leader of the disloyal midwayers who allied themselves with Caligastia. All of these evil personages became represented as “the dragon”.
2. Causes of the Rebellion
It is the belief of the author that Lucifer may very well have instigated rebellion wherever he came to be stationed, inasmuch as no special or peculiar conditions existed in the system which would predispose it to rebellion. Rebellion began in the mind of Lucifer, beginning with pride of self, leading to self-deception (good intentions). Next comes disillusionment at the error of his path. Pride prevented him from ceasing. Then, insincerity allowed evil to evolve into sin. When long offered the opportunity for repentance, he rejected it. Even the personal presentation, by the Faithful of Days, of Michael’s plan for saving the rebels, was repeatedly rejected with increasing contempt and disdain.
3. The Lucifer Manifesto
The final outbreak took form as the Lucifer Declaration of Liberty, or the Lucifer Manifesto.
The manifesto had three main heads, and each contention was bolstered by a conspiracy theory as a rationale to justify his actions.
1. The reality of the Universal Father.
Lucifer made the blasphemous charge that the Universal Father did not really exist and that the finaliters were in collusion with the Creator Sons to foist fraud on all creation. In the absence of the purposing presence of the personality of the Universal Father, the universe becomes without purpose. This, then, is the philosophical equivalent of NIHILISM
(Conspiracy: The Father was a mythical invention of the Creators Sons to legitimatize their rule of the local universes.)
2. The universe government of the Creator Son—Michael
Lucifer contended that the local systems should be autonomous, and not subject to the rule of a Creator Son in the name of a hypothetical Paradise Father. Further, that the whole plan of worship was a clever scheme to aggrandize the Paradise Sons. He labeled the Ancients of Days, “foreign potentates”, tyrants and usurpers, who were powerless to interfere with home rule, should men and angels assert themselves and claim their rights. This contention thus is the equivalent of ANARCHY.
(Conspiracy: Immortality is inherent in the system personalities, resurrection was natural and automatic, save for the unjust acts of the executioners of the Ancients of Days.)
3. The attack upon the universal plan of ascendant mortal training.
He challenged and condemned the entire plan of mortal ascension as sponsored by the Paradise Sons of God and supported by the Infinite Spirit. He protested against the agelong program for preparing the mortals of space for some unknown destiny and pointed to the presence of the finaliter corps on Jerusem as proof that these mortals had spent ages of preparation for some destiny of pure fiction. He advocated that ascenders should enjoy the liberty of individual self-determination. This aggrandizement of self is the equivalent of SOLIPSISM.
(Conspiracy: That finaliters were traitors to their mortal fellows, in their collusion with the scheme of enslaving all creation to the fictions of a mythical eternal destiny for ascending mortals.)
Lucifer’s own path began in the reverse order of the points of the manifesto. Beginning with SOLIPSISM, that the self is an island unto itself, led to rejection of the universe government (ANARCHY) [which can lead to TERRORISM] to the nihilistic position that the universe has no purpose save the service of self.
Again, to reinforce an important point, this sophistry can only be perpetrated through the faculties of spiritual consciousness.
Now we resume our study of this momentous upheaval in our local universe affairs.
Notes by Kermit
35:9.6 Our local universe has been unfortunate in that over seven hundred Sons of the Lanonandek order have rebelled against the universe government, thus precipitating confusion in several systems and on numerous planets. Of this entire number of failures only three were System Sovereigns; practically all of these Sons belonged to the second and third orders, Planetary Princes and tertiary Lanonandeks.
35:9.7 The large number of these Sons who have lapsed from integrity does not indicate any fault in creatorship. They could have been made divinely perfect, but they were so created that they might better understand, and draw near to, the evolutionary creatures dwelling on the worlds of time and space.
35:9.8 Of all the local universes in Orvonton, our universe has, with the exception of Henselon, lost the largest number of this order of Sons. On Uversa it is the consensus that we have had so much administrative trouble in Nebadon because our Sons of the Lanonandek order have been created with such a large degree of personal liberty in choosing and planning. I do not make this observation by way of criticism. The Creator of our universe has full authority and power to do this. It is the contention of our high rulers that, while such free-choosing Sons make excessive trouble in the earlier ages of the universe, when things are fully sifted and finally settled, the gains of higher loyalty and fuller volitional service on the part of these thoroughly tested Sons will far more than compensate for the confusion and tribulations of earlier times.
