Paper 39 Overview: The Seraphic Hosts

The Infinite Spirit produces seraphim (angels) with diverse abilities, who are then classified into seven distinct orders after education and training. These orders—Supreme Seraphim, Superior Seraphim, Supervisor Seraphim, Administrator Seraphim, Planetary Helpers, Transition Ministers, and Seraphim of the Future—each serve specific functions in the universe administration, from the highest levels of local universe governance to direct ministry with evolving mortals on inhabited worlds. Through experience and additional education, seraphim can progressively acquire skills to serve in various capacities beyond their inherent classification.

The ultimate goal for many seraphim is to become guardians of destiny for mortals, guiding them toward Paradise while determining their own destiny. After completing their universe service, seraphim seek to attain Seraphington, the angelic threshold to Paradise, through various pathways including specialized service, direct summons, or ascending with their mortal wards. Upon completion of their training, many return to serve in their native universes, bringing experiential perfection to complement the ministry of divine endowment in evolutionary realms nearing the age of light and life.

The Infinite Spirit, as personalized on local universe headquarters, produces seraphim that demonstrate remarkable diversity despite the intention to create uniform angels. This diversity may result from the influence of evolving experiential Deity, though this cannot be proven conclusively. When subjected to educational testing and training discipline, seraphim unfailingly classify into seven distinct groups: Supreme Seraphim, Superior Seraphim, Supervisor Seraphim, Administrator Seraphim, Planetary Helpers, Transition Ministers, and Seraphim of the Future.

While no seraphim can truly be considered inferior to angels of other groups, each begins with service limitations based on their original classification. Through application and devoted service, however, seraphim can progressively achieve all seven types of service, as demonstrated by Manotia, a supreme seraphim who now serves as associate chief of seraphim on Urantia. Unlike humans who begin life as helpless infants, seraphim have no childhood but must still acquire experiential prerequisites through education and experience. The higher their inherent function level, the more persistently these angels seek assignment to lower service orders, particularly desiring to serve as planetary helpers where they study human languages, history, and customs.

Supreme seraphim are the highest of the seven revealed orders of local universe angels, functioning in seven specialized groups closely associated with the Seraphic Corps of Completion. The first group, Son-Spirit Ministers, serves the high Sons and Spirit-origin beings in the local universe, including the Universe Son, Universe Spirit, and the Bright Morning Star. They are also associated with the Paradise Avonals during magisterial and bestowal missions, organizing the special work connected with ending one planetary dispensation and beginning another, though they are not involved in adjudication during these transitions.

The second through seventh groups perform equally important functions throughout the local universe. Bestowal Attendants, a corps of 144 completion seraphim, accompany Paradise Avonals on bestowal missions, having achieved Paradise and the embrace of the Eternal Son. Court Advisers ensure justice and mercy in all tribunals from conciliators to the highest courts, serving as defenders of mortals based on understanding personal motives and racial tendencies. Universe Orientators help ascending beings transition from their home universe to the superuniverse, while Teaching Counselors assist all teacher orders from Melchizedeks to morontia mortals. Directors of Assignment, elected from angels serving on evolutionary and architectural spheres, coordinate self-directed seraphic service, while Recorders maintain official records and Unattached Ministers form a general reserve for the supreme seraphic order.

Superior seraphim oversee the higher activities of a local universe, though they are not qualitatively superior to other angelic orders. Many in the first two groups are attainment seraphim who have served in all training phases before returning to glorified assignments directing others in their former activity spheres. Being a young universe, Nebadon has relatively few superior seraphim compared to older realms, yet they function efficiently in seven essential groups serving the broader needs of the local universe.

The Intelligence Corps, part of Gabriel's personal staff, gathers information throughout Nebadon for guidance in the councils, serving as Gabriel's intelligence network. While they can communicate with intelligence corps in other local universes within their superuniverse, energy differentials prevent routine communication between superuniverses except through Paradise clearinghouses. Other groups include the Voice of Mercy, who foster higher impulses in humans and angels; Spirit Co-ordinators, who prepare ascenders for transition from morontia to spirit status; and Assistant Teachers, who support educational enterprises throughout the universe. Transporters move beings between spheres, inducing a transit sleep where travelers are unconscious of time passing, while Recorders maintain and distribute essential information throughout Salvington and associated worlds. The Reserves provide an important standby force ready for dispatch wherever needed throughout Nebadon.

Supervisor seraphim exclusively serve the constellations, making their headquarters on constellation capitals while functioning throughout Nebadon to support their assigned realms. The first order, Supervising Assistants, works collectively with the Constellation Fathers (the Most Highs), focusing primarily on unifying and stabilizing entire constellations. Law Forecasters work with constellation legislative assemblies that formulate the basic laws of Nebadon, predicting how proposed legislation would affect freewill creatures based on their extensive experience in local systems and on inhabited worlds.

The remaining five groups serve equally important functions in constellation affairs. Social Architects enhance sincere social contacts from individual planets through the morontia training worlds, helping to remove artificiality from relationships and facilitating the association of will creatures based on genuine understanding and appreciation. Ethical Sensitizers foster appreciation for the morality of interpersonal relationships, while Transporters carry beings to and from constellation headquarters at velocities approaching 559,000 miles per second, fully conscious of their direction and position during flight. Recorders document constellation affairs, including those of Norlatiadek to which Urantia belongs, and Reserves provide a general pool of supervisor seraphim ready for various assignments, from messenger duties to special observation missions on worlds like Urantia.

Administrator seraphim, the fourth order of angels, manage the administrative affairs of local systems. Found primarily on system capitals but also stationed on mansion worlds, morontia spheres, and inhabited planets, these seraphim possess natural administrative abilities that make them valuable assistants to the directors of lower divisions in the Creator Son's universe government. They operate through seven specialized groups, each addressing different aspects of system administration and planetary governance.

Administrative Assistants directly support System Sovereigns and handle the complex details of system headquarters operations, also serving as personal agents traveling to transition worlds and inhabited planets. On worlds like Urantia, where Planetary Princes have defaulted on their divine mission, these seraphim assist the Melchizedek receivers who assume planetary authority. Justice Guides present evidence regarding eternal welfare in system and planetary tribunals, preparing statements for preliminary hearings on mortal survival, while Interpreters of Cosmic Citizenship guide new system citizens in understanding universe governance responsibilities. Quickeners of Morality teach self-government principles and the importance of patience in spiritual progress, emphasizing that the value lies not in what is learned in mortal life but in the experience of living. System Transporters move passengers between Jerusem and other worlds, including Urantia, while Recorders maintain threefold material, morontial, and spiritual records. The Reserves of administrator seraphim often interact with ascending mortals on Jerusem, where the first intermingling of Material Sons, angels, and ascending pilgrims occurs.

Planetary Helpers primarily serve the Planetary Adams, who biologically and intellectually uplift the material races on evolutionary worlds. These seraphim maintain headquarters on system capitals and work closely with resident Adamic citizens, but their most interesting work occurs on inhabited planets where they address the actual problems faced by evolving mortals preparing for eternity. On Urantia, most planetary helpers were removed when the Adamic regime collapsed, but some remained to serve in seven specialized groups.

The Voices of the Garden originally assisted Adam and Eve in their mission to enhance the evolutionary races through contribution of superior life plasm, with their headquarters in the Garden of Eden. Spirits of Brotherhood help Adamic regimes achieve racial harmony among diverse peoples, while Souls of Peace help primitive worlds realize "peace on earth and good will among men," including Vevona who announced Christ Michael's birth on Urantia. Spirits of Trust teach evolving humans to trust one another, an essential acquisition for advancing civilization, while Transporters move enseraphimed beings between worlds using special energy shields that appear wing-like to human observers. Recorders document planetary affairs in relation to system and universe governance, and Reserve planetary seraphim on Jerusem stand ready to serve wherever needed, also functioning as message carriers within the local system.

Transition ministers serve wherever they can assist creatures transitioning from material to spiritual estate, operating from inhabited worlds to system capitals. In Satania, they currently focus primarily on educating surviving mortals on the seven mansion worlds, with their ministry diversified according to seven specialized orders of assignment: Seraphic Evangels, Racial Interpreters, Mind Planners, Morontia Counselors, Technicians, Recorder-Teachers, and Ministering Reserves.

More detailed information about these seraphic ministers and their work with transitional ascenders will be provided in future narratives about the mansion worlds and morontia life experiences. These specialized angels are essential to the smooth progression of mortal survivors through the early stages of their ascension career, helping them adapt to morontia existence and preparing them for the challenges that lie ahead on their journey toward Paradise.

These angels do not minister extensively except in older realms and on the more advanced planets of Nebadon. Large numbers are held in reserve on the seraphic worlds near Salvington, where they engage in pursuits relevant to the eventual dawning of the age of light and life in Nebadon. These seraphim function primarily in connection with the ascendant-mortal career but minister almost exclusively to mortals who survive by modified orders of ascension.

Since these angels are not currently concerned with either Urantia or Urantians, the revelators have withheld detailed description of their fascinating activities. Their work remains largely in preparation for future universe epochs and evolutionary developments not yet manifest on the inhabited worlds of Nebadon, representing the angelic hosts' anticipation of more advanced stages of planetary and universe evolution.

Seraphim originate in local universes, and in these same realms of their nativity, some achieve service destiny. With the help and counsel of senior archangels, some seraphim may be elevated to the exalted duties of Brilliant Evening Stars, while others attain different high positions, but Seraphington remains the eternal goal of all angels. Seraphington serves as the angelic threshold to Paradise and Deity attainment, a transition sphere from the ministry of time to the exalted service of eternity.

Seraphim may attain Paradise through numerous pathways, but three are particularly significant. They may gain admission to Paradise by achieving perfection of specialized service as celestial artisans, Technical Advisers, or Celestial Recorders, becoming Paradise Companions and possibly eternal ministers to seraphic orders. Alternatively, they might be summoned to Seraphington under certain conditions, or they may attain Paradise through the evolutionary mortal technique by serving as guardian angels. These guardians of destiny, drawn from experienced angelic personalities of all seraphic orders, protect mortal creatures along the path of divine destiny while simultaneously determining their own high destiny. When mortal ascenders leave Uversa for Havona, their guardian angels bid them temporary farewell to journey to Seraphington and attempt to achieve the seven circles of seraphic light.

After attaining the Father of spirits and admission to seraphic service of completion, angels are sometimes assigned to minister on worlds settled in light and life. They gain attachment to high trinitized beings and the exalted services of Paradise and Havona, having experientially compensated for the divinity potential differential that formerly separated them from the ministering spirits of central and superuniverses. Angels of the Seraphic Corps of Completion serve as associates of superuniverse seconaphim and assistants to high Paradise-Havona orders of supernaphim, having completed their time career and becoming eternal servants of God.

Many completion seraphim return to their native universes to complement divine endowment with experiential perfection. Nebadon, being comparatively young, has fewer returned Seraphington graduates than older realms, but evolutionary worlds increasingly need their services as they approach light and life status. Twelve specialized groups of the Seraphic Corps of Completion provide extensive ministry on Urantia, accompanying each newly commissioned Planetary Prince to inhabited worlds. Though they previously sought assignment as destiny guardians, in their post-Paradise experience these completion seraphim most desire to serve as bestowal attendants to incarnated Paradise Sons, helping mortal creatures begin their long journey toward Paradise divinity and eternity.