In my last article I complained a bit about how Hollywood’s depiction of aliens ruined a lot of great sci-fi flicks for me. There are a few really great sci-fi flicks available though. Two that immediately come to mind are Avatar and The Matrix. I would encourage any Urantia Book student to watch these two movies with their “Urantia-goggles” on.

Avatar has some great parallels with The Urantia Book. My favourite is the depiction of the main character, Jake waking up in his avatar body. I often like to compare his experience to what I think it must be like waking up in the Mansion World Resurrection Halls.

As many similarities as there are in Avatar, The Matrix could have been written by a midwayer considering it’s message. Why? Because quite simply, we are living in a matrix.
 
 

What is the Matrix?

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life; that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.”

These words were spoken by Morpheus in the movie,  but if The Urantia Book could speak, I’m pretty sure that this is what it would say to us.

Everyone who has come across The Urantia Book has faced a familiar decision: take the red pill and continue on in blissful ignorance, or take the ‘blue’ pill and find out just how far down the rabbit hole goes. (Yes, I’ve switched the pill colours- because The Urantia Book is blue)

So we take the blue pill- The Urantia Book, and we find out that the rabbit hole goes deeper than we’ve ever imagined. We find out that we have been deceived; that the life we are living on this planet is one that has been deliberately and maliciously distorted to serve one purpose; to shield us from universal truth in order to perpetuate the implementation of the Lucifer Manifesto in Urantian human society.

200 000 years ago, Lucifer rebelled against the government of God. Thirty-seven of his subordinate planetary rulers betrayed their planets to his cause. Ours was one of them. Our apostate rulers immediately sought to remake human society based on the ideas promoted in Lucifer’s doctrine. They superimposed their matrix of distorted and manipulated truth on the evolution of human society. Their first matrix failed miserably. Their second has been functioning for hundreds of millennia.
 
 

The Matrix Has Us

“The matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you got to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” -Morpheus

The matrix is designed to divert our attention from what is truly important.  For example: we spend our entire lives focused on the singular quest for money.  Why?  Because our society is based on money.  It is required for everything, from the basic essentials to the ridiculously extravagant luxuries of life.  Money makes the world go round.  It is the reason why corporations and the people behind them are willing to poison and destroy the earth; money and debt are the one reason why so many people put up with the life-sucking drudgery of showing up day to day, 9 to 5, to devote their precious waking hours to work that numbs our minds and souls.  It is a vicarious trauma that drives people to drink, and worse.

Did Caligastia invent commerce? Did he invent money?  I can’t argue for commerce, but an argument can be made that he may have invented money.  The Sumerian histories tell us that the Anunnaki (rebel staff, in this case) enslaved

vast numbers of people to mine for gold.  This practice was so widespread that the whole reason for the Anunnaki coming to Earth was eventually determined to be for their love and need of gold. It became a currency. This love of gold was not lost on ‘us’.  We adopted this unquenchable hunger for gold and have based our commerce and currency on it ever since.

This is not the article to dig into this deeper, but it is a fascinating idea with much more evidence than I am sharing here.  I feel very strongly that making an otherwise useless metal so valuable in the eyes of our ancestors could very easily have been done deliberately with a very ‘long term’ goal in mind.  Tens of thousands of years later we find ourselves enslaved by currency and the accumulation of it; even just to survive. ‘Paying the bills’ takes up the vast majority of our time. Because it is necessary for our very survival, it creates conflict, competition, and it occupies our minds, often to the exclusion of all else.

And for those who do find the time to ponder other things?  Sports, movies, celebrities, and television all contribute to ensuring that our minds are always occupied with the trivial, and never with the truly important.

Our society is designed so that it takes great effort to focus on the things that really matter.  The pressure to fit in is enormous!  Those who refuse to succumb to that pressure are marginalised, ostracised, and ridiculed.   Like it or not, believe it or not, we are firmly entrenched in the Matrix.
 
 

Going Down the Rabbit Hole

I don’t think that we will ever know the full extent of the Luciferian matrix on Urantia until we are on the Mansion Worlds. Due to the isolation of our planet, Caligastia and his rebel staff have had ample opportunity to re-organise and shape human society based entirely on their vision of the philosophy behind Lucifer’s Manifesto at their leisure.  Aside from the emergency bestowal of Melchizedek, and the bestowal of Michael as Jesus, these policies and philosophies have had roughly 200 000 years to become the basis for human civilisation.  The authors of the Urantia Papers, frustratingly (but no doubt wisely) never come right out and say exactly in what ways and to what degree our planet has strayed from the norm, but they do give us enough information to do some work and figure out some of it.  They have also provided a fascinating paper entitled Government on a Neighboring Planet, which although not described as ideal nor the universal norm, provides us with encouragement and direction.

Michael’s bestowal has finally allowed the light of universal truth to pierce the matrix and finally shine through.  The pinholes are slowly getting bigger. More and more people are starting to wake up. Future generations will be able to look back on The Urantia Book as a can of gas poured onto Michael’s flame.  They will stand back and exclaim, “Now, that’s a fire!”

That day, however, is in a future that none of us will be here to see.  We will all have long since moved on the the Mansion Worlds and beyond. But while we and the countless others who have gone on before us have the luxury of being individually removed from the matrix upon our deaths, human society on Urantia will remain tightly locked in the grip of this unrelenting matrix until enough people wake up during their mortal lifetimes, take notice, and most importantly, take action.

How do we wake up, and wake others up?  How do we take action?  I think that the first step is knowledge.  As G.I Joe used to tell us every Saturday morning, “Knowing is half the battle”.  (Did I just show my age?) Regardless of the source, knowledge IS at least the first step in winning the battle.  The Urantia Book sheds a great deal of light on this.  If we want to start to get a handle on how far down the rabbit hole we really are, we not only need to know what it was that Lucifer declared in his manifesto, but we also need to work out how these ideas have infiltrated, and even shaped our society.
 
 

Lucifer’s Manifesto

Lucifer’s rebellion was based on the following points.

1. The reality of the Universal Father. Lucifer contended that the Universal Father does not really exist. That he was a myth invented by the Paradise Sons enabling them to maintain their rule of the universes in his name.
2. The universe government of the creator son – Michael. Lucifer contended that the systems should be autonomous and protested against the right of Michael to assume sovereignty of Nebadon in the name of a hypothetical Paradise Father while requiring all personalities to acknowledge allegiance to this unseen Father.
3. The attack on the universal plan of ascendant mortal training. Lucifer maintained that too much time and energy were devoted to the scheme of so thoroughly training ascending mortals. He advocated that ascending mortals should enjoy the liberty of individual self-determination.

Lucifer maintained that the Father was a myth created by the Paradise Sons to enable them to maintain their rule of the universes in the Father’s name. He also denied that personality was a gift of the Universal Father. This is the fundamental basis for all of his contentions.

This contention manifests itself in our society as a primary source of atheism. He denied the existence of the Universal Father and proclaimed all that logically follows from this denial:

• There was no original creator.
• We know from our study of The Urantia Book, that the Father is the ultimate controller, so if there is no controller, physical gravity and space-energy now have to be inherent in the universe.
• If the Father does not exist, then neither does the Son and the Infinite Spirit. Therefore spiritual energy and mind must also be inherent in the universe.

What he did was reduce the Father from the original creative personality to a machine. Lucifer created the idea of the mechanistic universe. These ideas are not an invention of modern science. They are based on this first and most basic contention of Lucifer, proclaimed on our system capital and here on Earth over 200 000 years ago.

(It should be noted though that much of the atheism in our modern society also has its origin in western society’s negative reaction to centuries of theocratic and institutionalised control which the church imposed on every facet of life; including areas it had no business interfering with. The reaction is of course the scientific revolution and it’s ultimate mission is twofold, one to discover the physical laws of the universe and learn how to wisely apply them; and two, to finally rid religion of the baggage of doctrine, dogma and crystallising institution that it has accumulated over the centuries. You could say that the karma of science is destined to back over the dogma of religion.)

Lucifer fictionalised the Father because he wanted to replace him. He maintained that reverence was no more than ignorance.

Lucifer’s assistant, Satan, proclaimed that worship could be accorded the universal forces- physical, intellectual, and spiritual, but that allegiance could be acknowledged only to the actual and present ruler, Lucifer, the “friend of men and angels” and the “God of Liberty”. Freedom of religion and worship were allowed since they declared that all religions are equal, but Lucifer required allegiance from everyone to his personal authority.

In our modern societies these are hard won freedoms! Yet there it is; freedom of worship and religion while allegiance is to the state. The state is separate from religion, and for good reason! The ramifications of this are not going to sit well with many people, and will require a serious evaluation of these ideas. They bring up a few obvious questions:

• Are all religions equal or not?
• No separation of church and state? Why don’t we just go back to the middle ages then!
• Should we not be free to worship as we choose?
• Where should our allegiance lie, if not with the state?

Let’s look at these questions in turn.
 
 
Are All Religions Equal?

“There is a peculiarly modern idea that truth is entirely relative and exists only in the experience of the individual, and that somehow everyone’s “truth” must be equally valid. Like printing your own money, this devalues the currency of truth until it becomes worthless. This is relativism. Wanting everything to be equally true is actually meaningless.” – 1GOD.com.

If one looks at the organised religions (not just the major ones) objectively, it is hard to escape the conclusion that no, they are not equal. This is not to say that each of them does not contain at least some universal truth and that many don’t benefit man by bringing him closer to God, but we can also compare them in terms of how much they serve as an obstacle; greatly retarding man’s discovery of God and cultivation of a personal relationship with him. Obstacles of this nature are exemplified by institutional religion’s continued participation in power and politics, its focus on ceremony and ritual, and its continued invasive presence in parts of society which have nothing whatsoever to do with discovering and cultivating a personal relationship with the Father. Some religions present more obstacles than others, and some present a clearer path to finding the Father.

This is where science has played its most important role in religion; tearing down some of these obstacles. Other obstacles must wait upon a more enlightened and indignant populace before they can be dealt with.
 
 
Separation of Church and State

In most people’s minds, separation of church and state is the only thing standing in the way of a return to a theocracy reminiscent of the European middle ages. One has only to look at the grip that extreme fundamentalist sects within

some of the major religions have on many countries and societies even today to see the devastating influence that these theocracies have. Separation of church and state is a recently hard won victory against the totalitarianism of institutionalised religion and until such time as religion can be shed of it’s craving for power- not just political power, but power over the hearts and minds of its followers, separation of church and state is a very good thing.

On a normal evolutionary planet however, civilisation is a co-creative process between the Government of God and the planet’s inhabitants. A normal world has a resident, visible planetary administration which is established usually around the time that its inhabitants exhibit will. This administration persists throughout the planet’s long history to guide and minister to the planet.  Because this planetary administration is a literal physical manifestation of the Government of God, the ideal planetary government is in fact theocratic, but in a way that we can hardly fathom when we think of this word.

Here we can see a great example that shows us that we are indeed on a tangent and it is even more revealing in showing us how far we have to go.  The idea of a benevolent theocracy working with civilisation to build towards increasingly greater heights while fostering technology, economics, science, education, and spirituality at the same time sounds utopian or even alien.  However it sounds, once the isolation of our planet is lifted and whatever form of visible planetary administration is reinstated, it will be the goal of every progressive citizen on the planet.
 
 
Should We Not Be Free To Worship As We Choose Then?

This is a very difficult question, isn’t it! No wonder so many people were taken in by Lucifer! This brings into question the topic of truth and free will.

Let’s define a few terms before we go on:

Truth: The way things really are.  All truth is relative short of the Universal Father, he is absolute truth and absolute reality.

Worship: As mortals, we can only worship the highest truth that we can comprehend.  This should also function as an imperative: if you can envision or conceptualise something greater than who or what you are worshipping now, frankly, you are selling yourself, and the Father, short.

Free will:  The Father has given us free will to choose either to participate in his plan or not.  Ultimately with every decision we make, with every exercise of this free will, consciously or unconsciously, we are either choosing the Father or not.

So, we are expected to exercise our free will to choose to worship the highest concept of truth/reality that we can comprehend (This, for Urantians, is the Universal Father) and as we strive to know him better personally, as we strive to understand his creation intellectually, this concept will gradually expand and evolve in our minds. In this way, true religion cannot be codified, true religion is always changing and evolving. This it the source of the error of institutionalising religion. Religion needs to flow, to ACT, to become. When it is stagnant and crystallised, it becomes lifeless. It becomes a philosophy.

The Father will not coerce any being to worship and love him. Free will reigns supreme in the whole of the Father’s creation. However, Lucifer distorted people’s understanding of creation, of the Father and his place in it. It was Lucifer who denied the Father’s existence in order to set himself up as a God. He reduced the Father to a machine. If people really needed to worship something, then Satan provided some direction- people could worship these physical, intellectual, and spiritual universal forces. In short, people could worship nature.

People must indeed be free to exercise their free will and worship how they choose, however if worship is based on man’s greatest concept of universal truth or reality, then he deserves to have the best information possible about the nature of the universe before he makes his choice. And this information Lucifer has maliciously distorted and twisted to serve his own purposes.

We often hear critics describe our modern global society as technologically advanced, yet spiritually backward. Our spiritual progress on this planet has been irreparably damaged.  We live in a world where the primitive religions of fear- fear of nature, and fear of the spirit world (ghosts etc..) still contend with the more advanced concepts of a loving, personal, universal Creator. Lucifer’s universe without a personal creator/controller, the idea of a mechanistic universe bereft of intelligent control or organisation, is the foundation upon which the matrix is built.

As it stands now, since Lucifer infected our society with these ideas, we have been isolated and have had to make do as best we can. The world is awash in an ocean of –isms, and –ologys. It was not until Melchizedek came and then later Michael himself, that we have been given any serious direction. Since Michael’s bestowal here we have benefited from the worldwide arrival and bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and the Spirit of Truth to guide us towards a personal understanding and relationship with the Father. Unfortunately our complete escape from the matrix will have to wait until our arrival on the mansion worlds to be corrected on an individual basis.

Having shorn the Father of personality, Lucifer didn’t care who we “worshipped”.  Just as long as he had everyone’s loyalty and allegiance.

It’s all part of the matrix.
 
 
Where Should Our Allegiance Lie, If Not With The State?

Another hard question, but more easily answered. Ask yourself, do your political leaders really deserve your unquestioned allegiance? Look at what many governments do with that allegiance. They exploit or even war on other countries to promote the interests of those with power.

There is a growing number of people in the world today with multiple citizenships- millions of well-traveled people who have lived in more than one country.  Having lived in other countries and gotten to know the people living there, these people are beginning to realise that almost everyone on the planet shares the same basic hopes and dreams for themselves and their families.  These globally minded people are beginning to feel a different allegiance; not to any one nation, but to a global family of which they are a part. In the same way that allegiance has evolved from the tribe, to the state, to the monarch, to the nation, and as more people shift their allegiance to the global family, we will one day move beyond even that to ally ourselves again with God.

This is not wishful or utopian thinking.  It is our future, separated from us only by time and effort.    …  A lot of time, and a lot of effort.

We have heard that Lucifer attacked the rights of the Paradise Sons to rule in the name of the Universal Father. He contended that the local systems should be autonomous. He bitterly attacked the right of the Ancients of Days to interfere in system affairs. He denounced them as tyrants and usurpers. He urged his followers to believe that if men and angels only had the courage to assert themselves and to boldly claim their rights, that the Ancients of Days would have no choice but to cede to their demands. He contended that majorities rule, and that mind is infallible.

So we need to look at three points here: autonomous government, the idea that majorities rule, and the idea that mind is infallible.
 
 
Autonomous Government/Self Government

Lucifer wanted autonomy. He wanted it so that he could rule in his own right, in his own way with no oversight. In other words, he wanted unqualified sovereignty over his domain. This requires a discussion of self determination and personal liberty which we will get into in a second, but first let’s look at an example of autonomy from God’s Government.

Government here has certainly been limited to just our quarantined planet. Self-determination has been our only path. Since the rebellion and our subsequent isolation, we have had little choice but to strike out on our own without any direct input from a planetary administration, and our civilisation is the result. In terms of what not to do, we can hold our heads up high to the rest of the universe, as the standard-bearers. In all seriousness though, the Urantia Papers clearly state that we are not to be blamed for the errors of our celestial leaders. Self-determination without wisdom and experience is akin to a toddler playing with matches. Self-government is a responsibility that must be earned.
 
 
Majority Rule

Again we run into a troubling topic. What’s wrong with majority rule? This is the foundation of our representative democracy! The problem is that in practice, majorities seldom if ever rule, and are not always right. I’m sure that every person reading this could easily come up with at least one example of how majorities are not always right.  Here’s a thought to chew on:

For us, in this stage of our social evolution, representative democracy based on the idea of majority rule is a worthy ideal. But stop to consider; even in a fair democratic election the so-called majority actually rules only one day every 3-4 years depending on the country. Yes, the majority chooses the members who will sit in government for the next term, but who chooses the candidates who run for the seats? A candidate must usually have the backing of a political party, and it takes money to win an election. Most successful candidates have the backing of rich powerbrokers.

So, is the majority always right? Think for a moment that back in the middle ages the vast majority of western civilisation believed that the world was flat, or that the universe revolved around the earth, or more recently, that the mullet hairstyle was cool.

In Lucifer’s case, he used the false promise of majority rule to bolster his ranks against Michael and the Ancients of Days. His hope was that faced with an overwhelming opposition, the Ancients of Days would cede to his demands.

This all ultimately leads us to a discussion of liberty and freewill. Just as national governments and corporations all over the planet today bandy about buzzwords such as freedom and liberty to justify their exploitation of others, we need to look behind these words at what they are really saying. We are told that of all the perplexing problems growing out of the Lucifer Rebellion, none has occasioned more difficulty than the failure of immature evolutionary mortals to distinguish between true and false liberty. Here’s a quote :

“ True liberty is the quest of the ages and the reward of evolutionary progress. False liberty is … unbridled self-will and unregulated self expression which equal unmitigated selfishness, the acme of ungodliness. Liberty without the associated and ever-increasing conquest of self is a figment of egoistic mortal imagination. True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. Self-control leads to an altruistic service; self admiration tends towards the exploitation of others.”

Lucifer’s third charge was for the self-determination of ascendant mortals. We see now that true liberty must be earned.

So with this definition of true and false liberty under our belts, do we still think that unbridled liberty, or freedom is a worthy goal? As a global family we are still far too immature to exercise any sort of liberty without regulation, we lack the self control, both on a personal and a national level. This is one of the strongest arguments that exists for a single planetary government; one that can regulate the unbridled liberty of both nations and corporations.
 
 
Mind Is Infallible

Lucifer also contended that mind is infallible.  Logically, if the Paradise Trinity did not exist and their attributes were instead natural phenomenon inherent to the universe, the highest force must be mind.

Lucifer accused the Ancients of Days and the Paradise Sons of distorting the truth to enable their rule.  He encouraged anyone who would listen to wake up to the realisation that mind is supreme, and to use their minds to free themselves from the yolk of this oppression and to choose their own destiny.

This was a deceptive and very appealing idea to many who heard it.  It is deceptive because mind is very powerful.  It is the arena where everything is played out; our decisions, our intentions, and it is also the arena where we ultimately make contact with the divine.  In encouraging people to free themselves from the ‘oppression’ of God’s Government, he was effectively attempting to sever the individual’s connection with the Divine.

Mind is not infallible.  It is the tool we all make use of to either draw closer to the Divine or to withdraw from it.  Attacking and clouding people’s perception of mind has allowed the Luciferian Matrix to withstand the ages and the dispensational attempts at planetary rehabilitation.
 
 

Summary

The wool has indeed been pulled over our eyes. We are living in a world where the truth is deliberately distorted by a well organised and firmly entrenched attack on not only our society and our collective values, but also on our minds and the very way we perceive the world around us.

I’ve brought up a lot of different things in this article and hopefully I’ve made some sense.  I’ve tried to connect some dots and although some of the implications are a bit alarming, I’ve been very careful to ensure that what I’ve discussed here is logically sound and is very clearly connected to The Urantia Book‘s description of Lucifer’s manifesto.

We’ve seen how the Universal Father is the ultimate expression of truth and reality in his creation, and through the above discussion of truth, worship, and free will, we see that based on the truth that the Father is reality, we are given free will to choose either to become part of that reality or not.  Lucifer distorted and confused the reality and the truth of the Father solely to further his own ambitions.  He betrayed the trust of not only his superiors, but the trust that billions of ascending creatures in his system placed in him to reveal the higher truths of the universe.  The extent of what he did to the evolving worlds, where mortals are making their first tentative steps into the magnificent creation of the Father has no comparison.

Here is a quick summary of the basic themes in the Lucifer Manifesto as they are echoed in Urantian society:

• There is no God- no personal creator, and therefore physical and spiritual gravity etc.. are natural phenomenon and inherent in the universes.
• All individuals regardless of social and intellectual maturity should have the freedom and liberty to pursue their own vision of happiness without interference from the state or society at large.
• The rights of the individual (self-assertion and personal liberty) are valued at the expense of cooperation and self control.
• Majorities are always right. (The foundation of representative government)
• All religions are equal in status. Freedom to worship as you choose is protected, but allegiance and loyalty is reserved for the nation state (country)

I hope that it is plain to see that there truly is a matrix and it is not that much different from the one described in the movie.  Lucifer’s ideas pervade our society not just through our religious views, and not in the ways that religion typically views things such as satanic influence. They are also in our political views and even in our most basically held ideals regarding civilisation and the values we uphold.

In this analogy, Urantians are among those who are waking up, and the more awake we become, the more exposed the Luciferian matrix becomes. Perhaps this is why we have so much trouble getting people to take the blue pill and read The Urantia Book. Most people are either completely asleep and not searching, or they are just not ready to be awakened.

“You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependant on the system that they will fight to protect it.”  –Morpheus

The ‘blue pill’ allows us for almost the first time to know the context and content of Lucifer’s manifesto, and allows us to start the work of comparing his doctrine to how we are told the rest of the universe works. It’s not easy work. It requires intellectual, emotional, and spiritual effort- and it requires courage.

Let me end here by sharing something that I have realised about courage: The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. It takes true courage to choose the blue pill in the face of friends, family, and society marginalising you as eccentric or even crazy.

Neo: “I can’t go back, can I.”
Morpheus: “No. But if you could, would you really want to?”
 
 
 
 
I’d like to acknowledge a most excellent article written by Robert Sarmast entitled Is the Urantia Book ‘New Age’? where many of these ideas originated. His article got the study group and I here in Perth talking about these things and allowed us to expand the concept to the scale we are currently working on.
 
A great deal of the content in this article was discussed in our webcast, The Ramifications of Lucifer’s Manifesto on our Planetary Civilisation.