Bøger af Saskia Praamsma

THE URANTIA REVELATION was presented by celestial authors through an anonymous human receiver. It was published in 1955 as The Urantia Book, a 2097-page volume divided into 196 papers. These papers describe God, the grand universe and its many inhabitants, the origin and history of our planet, the life and teachings of Jesus, and the glorious destiny God has planned for every creature throughout his vast domains-an endless life of boundless opportunity and unlimited progress. The Inhabited Universe consists of sixteen papers from the Urantia revelation. It focuses on the many worlds we will encounter as we journey through the universe, worlds teeming with life, both human and superhuman."* 'God is spirit, ' but Paradise is not. The material universe is always the arena wherein take place all spiritual activities; spirit beings and spirit ascenders live and work on physical spheres of material reality." (Paper 12, "The Universe of Universes")* "Spirit beings do not dwell in nebulous space; they do not inhabit ethereal worlds; they are domiciled on actual spheres of a material nature, worlds just as real as those on which mortals live. The Havona worlds are actual and literal, albeit their literal substance differs from the material organization of the planets of the seven superuniverses." (Paper 14, "The Central and Divine Universe")* "There is a great and glorious purpose in the march of the universes through space. All of your mortal struggling is not in vain. We are all part of an immense plan, a gigantic enterprise, and it is the vastness of the undertaking that renders it impossible to see very much of it at any one time and during any one life. We are all a part of an eternal project which the Gods are supervising and outworking. The whole marvelous and universal mechanism moves on majestically through space to the music of the meter of the infinite thought and the eternal purpose of the First Great Source and Center." (Paper 32, "The Evolution of Local Universes")

A posthumous collection of early communications Harold Sherman received from his Higher Self, whom he named "Ara". HAROLD SHERMAN (1898-1987) was an ESP investigator and a lifelong student of the mysteries of the mind. He published a number of bestselling self-help books, beginning with Your Key to Happiness in 1935. A popular lecturer, he traveled across the United States spreading the message that man needs to learn to utilize the powers of his own mind in order to live life to the fullest. Sherman's wife Martha shared in these studies. In 1941, while living in New York, they began corresponding with a man named Harry Loose in California, who quickly became their spiritual mentor. Loose told them about the Urantia manuscript, a voluminous document reporting to be a revelation from higher universe beings. He believed that this work, which was finally published in 1955 as The Urantia Book, would change the thinking of the world. Loose described to the Shermans much of the manuscript's contents, including its portrayal of a universe teeming with spiritual beings and influences. Sherman was particularly struck by the manuscript's teaching that a fragment of God lived in each human being. The manuscript called this fragment of God the "Thought Adjuster" and said that a Thought Adjuster indwells each of us, to guide and inspire us. Harold believed that he was becoming aware of this inner voice, which identified itself as "Ara". Ara began to communicate messages of various lengths, which Harold copied down as they presented themselves in his mind. Many messages had to do with the role Harold believed he was destined to play in the eventual presentation of the Urantia revelation to the world. The Ara messages were recorded, neatly typed, in a loose-leaf binder, together with accounts of dreams, psychic impressions, and Urantia-related poems. These writings span the years 1938-1952, with the bulk of the material recorded in 1941-42.

This book contains 367 accounts of how early readers found the Urantia Book and what it means to them.The Urantia Book is a superhuman revelation of truth given to the peoples of our planet, which they call Urantia. It teaches us about God, the structure of the universe and its divinely planned development, angels, life after death, the origin and history of our planet, the life and teachings of Jesus, and our eternal destiny as perfected citizens of a friendly universe. It provides an enlightening picture of reality in which science, religion, and philosophy are unified. The authors are a corps of celestial beings who were authorized to reveal this information to us, which was mysteriously transmitted through the mind of a "sleeping subject." When the 2097-page Urantia Book was first published in 1955 it was decided not to advertise it, to let the message spread from one reader to another. This book of testimonies traces how 367 readers discovered the revelation, from pre-publication days in 1924 to the coming of the popular Internet in the late 1990s.