Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 44
THE CELESTIAL ARTISANS
1. Among the courtesy colonies of the various divisional and universe headquarters worlds, may be found the unique order of composite personalities denominated the celestial artisans...They are the spirits and semispirits who are engaged in morontia embellishment and in spiritual beautification.
2. The celestial artisans are not created as such; they are a selected and recruited corps of beings composed of certain teacher personalities native to the central universe and their volunteer pupils drawn from the ascending mortals and numerous other celestial groups ...They are commissioned in the following seven major divisions of activity:
1. Celestial Musicians.
2. Heavenly Reproducers.
3. Divine Builders.
4. Thought Recorders.
5. Energy Manipulators.
6. Designers and Embellishers.
7. Harmony Workers.
3. To spirit beings the spirit world is a reality. To us the material world is the more unreal. The higher forms of spirits freely pass through ordinary matter ...I cannot, with exclusive spirit vision, perceive the building in which this narrative is being translated and recorded. A Divine Counselor from Uversa who chances to stand by my side perceives still less of these purely material creations. We discern how these material structures appear to you by viewing a spirit counterpart presented to our minds by one of our attending energy transformers.
4. There are certain types of beings who are capable of discerning the reality of the creatures of both the spirit and the material world ...fourth creatures of the Havona Servitals and the fourth creatures of the conciliators ...angels of time and space... ascending mortals...Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences …Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
5. I almost despair of being able to convey to the material mind the nature of the work of the celestial artisans...If the Urantia races were more advanced in art and other cultural accomplishments, then could I go that much farther in an effort to project the human mind from the things of matter to those of morontia.
6. With the limited range of mortal hearing, you can hardly conceive of morontia melodies... I have seen millions of enraptured beings held in sublime ecstasy while the melody of the realm rolled in upon the spirit energy of the celestial circuits. These marvelous melodies can be broadcast to the uttermost parts of a universe.
7. The majority of Urantia mortals react to music so largely with the material muscles and so slightly with the mind and spirit; but there has been a steady improvement in musical appreciation for more than thirty‑five thousand years.
8. While you have assembled some beautiful melodies on Urantia, you have not progressed musically nearly so far as many of your neighboring planets in Satania...But be not discouraged.; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, "melody has power a whole world to transform." Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona.
9. In spirit counterpart we have all that you mortals are familiar with and inexpressibly more. We have homes, spirit comforts, and morontia necessities. For every material satisfaction which humans are capable of enjoying, we have thousands of spiritual realities that serve to enrich and enlarge our existence.
10. Thought preservers. These are the artisans dedicated to the preservation of the higher thought of the realms...All of the higher orders of Nebadon are bilingual, speaking both the language of Nebadon and the tongue of Uversa...In the central universe there is little need of a language ...We are taught that a chance meeting on Paradise reveals more of mutual understanding than could be communicated by a mortal language in a thousand. years.
11. Concept recorders ...by this method I could gain more knowledge in one hour of your time than you could gain in one hundred years of perusing ordinary written language... in the language of Nebadon we could, in a half hour's address, cover the subject matter of the entire lifetime of a Urantia mortal.
12. The broadcast directors. The broadcasts of Paradise, the superuniverses, and the local universes are under the general supervision of this group of thought conservers. They serve as censors and editors as well as co‑ordinators of the broadcast material, making a superuniverse adaptation of all Paradise broadcasts and adapting and translating the broadcasts of the Ancients of Days into the individual tongues of the local universes. The local universe broadcasts must also be modified for reception by the systems and the individual planets.
13. The teachers of rest. Divine rest is associated with the technique of spiritual‑energy intake. Morontia and spirit energy must be replenished just as certainly as physical energy, but not for the same reasons ...In many ...ways do these experts lend assistance to morontia and spirit creatures in their efforts to understand the divine rest, which is so essential to the effective utilization of the basic energies of space.
14. These expressions of the divine urge within the evolving creature may be intellectually true, emotionally beautiful, and. spiritually good; but the real soul of expression is absent unless these realities of truth, meanings of beauty, and values of goodness are unified in the life experience of the artisan, the scientist, or the philosopher.
15. Every God‑knowing man or angel possesses the potential of unlimited self‑expression on ever-progressive levels of unified self‑realization by the technique of the never-ending achievement of Godlikeness.
16. There are three possible sources of special human ability: At the bottom always there exists the natural or inherent aptitude... In addition to this natural ability, or rather supplemental thereto, there may be contributed the leadings of the Thought Adjuster…In those cases where both the human mind, and the indwelling Adjuster are unusually skillful, the spirit artisans may be delegated to act as harmonizers of these talents.
17. There can be no handicap of human heredity or deprivation of mortal environment which the morontia career will not fully compensate and wholly remove. And all such satisfactions of artistic achievement and. expressionful self‑realization will be effected by your own personal efforts in progressive advancement.
18. Before ascending mortals leave the local universe to embark upon their spirit careers, they will be satiated respecting every intellectual, artistic, and social longing or true ambition which ever characterized their mortal or morontia planes of existence.
19. The new spirit differential of personal experiential attainment will not become thus leveled off and equalized until after you have finished the last circle of the Havona career. And then will the Paradise residents be confronted with the necessity of adjusting to that absonite differential of personal experience which can be leveled off only by the group attainment of the ultimate of creature status—the seventh‑stage-spirit destiny of the mortal finaliters.
Discussion Questions
1. Why were the original Celestial Artrisans recruited from Havona rather than created in our local universe?
2. Why do we usually regard art and music as secondary educational subjects?
3. Why are mortals eventually given the opportunity to perceive a wider range of reality than high spirit beings?
4. Is artistic and musical talent primarily an acquirement of heredity or education?
5. What is the purpose of these revelations of unspeakable grandeur and efficiency of life beyond our material existence?
6. Who are some of the gifted individuals who may have been helped by the Celestial Artisans?
7. How should we prepare for the opportunity to satisfy “every intellectual, artistic, and social longing or true ambition” in our future existence?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship