Alien Religion 2 of 3

#2 of 3

"Hillary Clinton Fundraises with Leader of Alien Religious Group"
http://bit.ly/1I9DwWo

Breitbart misrepresents the book and the Urantia movement.

1.

The "religious group" is a diverse menagerie of folks ranging from casual readers of, to raving fanatics about, The Urantia Book.

The Urantia Foundation is the original publisher of the book, and it has an associated official "Brotherhood." There's an unofficial "Fellowship." And there are all manner of private study groups.

There are many other different groups of adherents, some of whom claim all manner of things, including their own channeled "extensions" to the book and bizarre re-interpretations. Meh. Humans, right?

And there's a "silent majority" of individuals who just read the book and aren't joiners or cultists or give a fig about the moovement.

2.

The Foreword and 126 "papers" which comprise the UB purport to be written by higher types of beings. These orders are all described in the books. but from our perspective, for non-students of the book, you might as well call them all "angels."

Anyway, certainly not by "aliens," which suggests little green ET's. It's a religious revelation. Not "how to serve humans." (Twilight Zone reference, in case you don't recognize it.)

3.

The article asserts, "In all likelihood, the book was written at least in part by Chicago doctor William Sadler in the 1920s and might have been based to some degree on the ravings of a lunatic patient."

Siiigh. No and no.

Although "contact" was supposedly first initiated in the late 1920s, the papers were "indicted" and "transcribed into the English language" gradually, from the mid-1930s up through just before WW2.

I'm personally assured it was not "written by" eminent psychologist Dr. Sadler. He was an interesting fellow, respected in his day, but supposedly his interest in the "revelation" was academic, initially. He was a debunker of mystic phenomena, intrigued by one inexplicable case that obliquely led to the appearance of the papers. He is said not to have "believed" the book until very late in the papers' appearance. If Sadler was a genius huckster faking all that, he fooled his closest friends.

That one strange case, described in the Breitbart article as a "lunatic patient" - that's the worst kind of prejudicial propaganda. The individual was reportedly a quite normal fellow by day, but he spouted strange things in his sleep, a condition with which he was unconcerned, but which caused his wife to take him to Dr Sadler. Long story about the "sleeping subject" associated with the book's conception, but the UB's mysterious and complicated origins are beyond the scope of this rant. "Lunatic" is just trash talk.

4.

If you have to categorize this unique work, it would be more part of the spiritual revivalism of first quarter of the last century, not the "New Age" stuff of later decades. Many "New Agers" have certainly taken it up, often with what I consider less than desirable consequences. I'll just leave it at that.

5.

A third of the book is the "Life and Teachings of Jesus,." Non-Christians would call it "Christian," therefore, but many Christians would object to that because the UB does differ with some fundamental Christian doctrines.

Naturally, these doctrinal differences are the closest the Breitbart article comes to accuracy, and which it harps on the most! Hardly a new thing. Some Fundamentalists insist it's the "work of the Devil." (Folks said the same about Jesus; you might recall his response.) It's just especially sad to see such a slanted screed in an article from Andrew's legacy site.

In general, the thrust of the UB's teaching can be simply put: living a life according to what Jesus called the first and greatest commandment and the second like unto it. But the larger content of it is beyond my rant's purposes here.

#2 of 3

Subjects: