Paper 47 Overview: The Seven Mansion Worlds

The seven mansion worlds serve as transitional training spheres for ascending mortals after death, providing progressive education and spiritual development. Each world addresses specific aspects of development: the first focuses on deficiency correction, the second on intellectual conflicts, the third on metaphysics and philosophy, the fourth on social life, the fifth on cosmic consciousness, the sixth on universe administration, and the seventh on final preparation for Jerusem citizenship. Throughout this journey, mortals progressively shed material limitations and develop enhanced morontia capabilities.

The mansion world experience represents the bridge between material life and higher spiritual existence, with each world marking significant advancement in the ascender's nature. Upon completing the mansion world curriculum, ascenders are welcomed as citizens of Jerusem, having fully transitioned to morontia beings. This journey includes seven resurrections, each providing a more refined morontia form, until the final transformation prepares the soul for the next stage of the eternal ascent toward Paradise.

During his time on Urantia, Jesus spoke of the "many mansions in the Father's universe," referring to the fifty-six encircling worlds of Jerusem devoted to transitional culture for ascending mortals. Of these, seven satellites of world number one are specifically designated as the mansion worlds. Transition world number one itself is dedicated exclusively to ascendant activities and serves as headquarters for more than one hundred thousand companies of finaliters, with each company consisting of one thousand glorified beings.

When a system achieves the settled status of light and life, and mansion worlds gradually cease functioning as mortal training stations, they are increasingly occupied by the growing finaliter population. The seven mansion worlds operate under the authority of morontia supervisors and the Melchizedeks, with an acting governor on each world directly answerable to the Jerusem rulers. Various beings maintain headquarters on these worlds, including Uversa conciliators, Technical Advisers, reversion directors, and celestial artisans, while spironga function from mansion world number two onward, and all seven worlds are abundantly supported by spornagia of standard creation.

Though only finaliters and certain groups of salvaged children with their caretakers permanently reside on transition world number one, provisions exist for entertaining all classes of spirit beings, transition mortals, and student visitors. The spornagia, who serve on all these worlds, are hospitable hosts to all beings they can recognize, though they cannot directly visualize finaliters. The central temple of the finaliters remains invisible to material and early morontia vision, but energy transformers occasionally allow ascending mortals to glimpse these realities during special class assemblies.

All survivors must meet the requirements of the parental commission from their native planets before advancing beyond the first mansion world. The current Urantia commission consists of twelve parental couples who have raised at least three children to puberty, serving rotational ten-year terms. Those failing to satisfy the commissioners must further qualify through service in the Material Sons' homes on Jerusem or in the probationary nursery on the finaliters' world. Mansion world parents with children in the probation nursery can collaborate with their children's morontia custodians and visit them up to four times a year, creating touchingly beautiful reunion scenes.

The infant-receiving schools of Satania are located on the finaliter world, the first of Jerusem's transition-culture spheres. These schools nurture and train children who died on evolutionary worlds before gaining individual status in universe records. When such a child's parent survives, their guardian of destiny assigns a cherubim to preserve the child's potential identity and deliver the undeveloped soul to the Mansion World Teachers in the probationary nurseries. These children awaken at their exact physical age at death, except without reproductive potential, at the moment their parent arrives on the first mansion world.

On the nursery world, probationary children are grouped according to whether they have Thought Adjusters, as the Adjusters come to indwell these material children just as they do on worlds of time. Children with Adjusters who died before making a Paradise career choice are repersonalized on the finaliter world, where they grow up in families of five with age ranges from six to fourteen years. After age sixteen, if they choose the Paradise path, they transfer to the first mansion world to begin their ascent, though few children under sixteen make this choice. Those who never choose the ascendant life experience a second and final death, while those selecting the Paradise journey often arrive on the first mansion world in time to join their parents in ascending through Havona.

On the mansion worlds, resurrected mortal survivors resume their lives exactly where they left off when death occurred. When transitioning from Urantia to the first mansion world, you would notice significant changes, primarily because you possess a different form of body, having left your physical flesh and blood behind on your birth world. The central hub of all first mansion world activities is the resurrection hall, an enormous temple of personality assembly where seraphic guardians, Thought Adjusters, and archangels of resurrection coordinate the reassembly of the sleeping survivors' personalities.

After resurrection, you proceed to the Melchizedek sector where you're assigned permanent residence, followed by ten days of personal freedom to explore your new surroundings and visit with loved ones who arrived before you. You then begin the second stage of your Paradise journey, resuming your intellectual training and spiritual development at precisely the level where it was interrupted by death. The first mansion world primarily addresses deficiency ministry, correcting the many character defects and experiential shortcomings carried over from material life. This sojourn is designed to develop mortal survivors to at least the post-Adamic dispensation level of normal evolutionary worlds, after which survivors either move to the next mansion world or, if detained, continue working on their deficiencies.

On the second mansion world, the groupings of morontia life begin to form as working groups and social organizations emerge. Communities take shape, and advancing mortals establish new social orders and governmental arrangements. Spirit-fused and Adjuster-fused ascending mortals live together harmoniously, without the intolerance and discriminatory caste systems prevalent on evolutionary worlds. As you progress through the mansion worlds, you'll notice they become increasingly populated with morontia activities, and you'll recognize more Jerusem features, including the appearance of the sea of glass on the second mansion world.

With each advancement between mansion worlds, you acquire a new, more advanced morontia body through the seraphic transport sleep process. Your Adjuster remains with you during these transitions, ensuring your personality remains intact throughout the ascendant career. Your Adjuster memory stays fully intact, though purely animal and material mental associations perish with the physical brain. On the morontia worlds, you consume a morontia order of food, a form of living energy unknown on material worlds, which leaves no waste. The second mansonia specifically focuses on removing intellectual conflicts and curing mental disharmony while continuing the study of morontia mota begun on the first world, comparable to the intellectual status of ideal evolutionary worlds in the post-Magisterial Son era.

Mansonia number three serves as the headquarters for the Mansion World Teachers—advanced and glorified cherubim who function as instructors across all mansion spheres and higher morontia worlds. Millions of these teachers operate throughout the mansion and morontia worlds, remaining with ascending mortals until their departure from the local universe. Upon reaching the third mansion world, students receive permission to visit the third transition sphere, home to angelic orders and their training schools, making their visits to Jerusem increasingly beneficial and interesting.

The third mansion world represents a significant turning point, as training shifts from the primarily negative, deficiency-focused approach of the first two worlds to more positive educational work. Here, ascending mortals truly begin their progressive morontia culture, enhancing their understanding of the correlation between morontia mota and mortal logic, and the coordination of morontia mota with human philosophy. This world introduces genuine metaphysics, the intelligent comprehension of cosmic meanings and universe interrelationships. The cultural environment parallels that of normal inhabited planets in their post-bestowal Son age, providing a substantial advancement in spiritual understanding and development.

Upon reaching the fourth mansion world, you have firmly established yourself in the morontia career and progressed significantly beyond material existence. Here, you receive permission to visit transition world number four to become familiar with the headquarters and training schools of the superangels, including the Brilliant Evening Stars. Through these superangels, morontia visitors can draw remarkably close to various orders of the Sons of God during periodic visits to Jerusem, as new sectors of the system capital gradually open to advancing mortals during these visits.

On the fourth mansion world, ascending individuals find their place in group activities and class functions of morontia life, developing greater appreciation for broadcasts and other aspects of local universe culture. This world introduces ascenders to the genuine demands and delights of true social life among morontia creatures—a social order based not on personal aggrandizement or self-seeking conquest, but on mutual appreciation, unselfish service, and the overmastering motivation of achieving the Paradise goal of divine perfection. Ascenders become increasingly self-conscious of God-knowing, God-revealing, God-seeking, and God-finding, with the intellectual and social culture comparable to the mental and social life of planets in the post-Teacher Son era.

Advancement to the fifth mansion world represents a monumental forward step in a morontia progressor's life. The experience on this world provides a genuine foretaste of Jerusem life, allowing you to realize the high destiny awaiting loyal evolutionary worlds that normally progress to this stage during their natural planetary development. The culture of this world corresponds generally to that of the early era of light and life on planets of normal evolutionary progress, which explains why highly cultured beings from advanced evolutionary worlds sometimes bypass one or more mansion worlds.

Having mastered the local universe language before leaving the fourth mansion world, you now devote more time to perfecting the language of Uversa, becoming proficient in both languages before acquiring residential status on Jerusem. Upon arrival on the fifth mansion, you receive permission to visit the transition world of the corresponding number, the Sons' headquarters, where you become personally familiar with various groups of divine sonship previously encountered on Jerusem. You also begin learning about constellation study worlds in preparation for your eventual departure to Edentia. A genuine birth of cosmic consciousness occurs here as your mind expands to embrace the universe, recognizing that a stupendous and magnificent destiny awaits those who complete the progressive Paradise ascension.

Residents of the sixth mansion world can visit transition world number six to learn about the high spirits of the superuniverse, though they cannot visualize many of these celestial beings. The assistant System Sovereign frequently visits this world to begin instruction in universe administration techniques. This brilliant period for ascending mortals often witnesses the perfect fusion of the human mind and divine Adjuster, though this fusion may have occurred potentially earlier, sometimes during the stay on the fifth or even the sixth world.

The union of the evolving immortal soul with the eternal divine Adjuster is marked by a special ceremony, where messengers of confirmation proclaim: "This is a beloved son in whom I am well pleased." This simple ritual marks the entrance of an ascending mortal into the eternal career of Paradise service. Immediately following Adjuster fusion, the new morontia being receives a new name and enjoys forty days of spiritual retreat to commune with themselves and select their route to Havona and technique for reaching Paradise. Though still somewhat material rather than fully spiritual, described as supermortals slightly lower than angels spiritually, these beings are becoming marvelous creatures, achieving a status comparable to the exalted development found on evolutionary worlds that have progressed beyond the initial stage of light and life.

The seventh mansion world experience represents the crowning achievement of the immediate postmortal career. During your stay, you receive instruction from many teachers who prepare you for residence on Jerusem. Any remaining differences between mortals from isolated, retarded worlds and those from advanced, enlightened spheres are virtually eliminated during this final mansonia sojourn. Here, you are purged of all remnants of unfortunate heredity, unwholesome environment, and unspiritual planetary tendencies, with the last traces of the "mark of the beast" completely eradicated.

While on the seventh mansion world, you receive permission to visit transition world number seven, the world of the Universal Father, where you begin a new and more spiritual worship of the unseen Father, a practice you will increasingly pursue throughout your long ascending career. Classes now form for graduation to Jerusem, and though you have visited Jerusem many times as a guest, you now prepare to depart for the system capital with residential status, traveling in groups rather than individually. The personnel of the seventh mansonia gather at the sea of glass to witness your departure, as you bid farewell to the mansonia career and proceed toward becoming welcomed as a citizen of Jerusem.

The arrival of a new class of mansion world graduates signals all Jerusem to assemble as a welcoming committee. Even the spornagia enjoy the arrival of these triumphant evolutionary ascenders who have completed the planetary race and mansion world progression. John the Revelator saw a vision of such an arrival from the seventh mansion world, describing it as "a sea of glass mingled with fire" where those who had gained victory stood with "the harps of God, singing the song of deliverance from mortal fear and death." The "harp of God" is a morontia device that compensates for the inability to directly adjust to receiving space communications.

After attaining residence on Jerusem, ascending mortals experience no more literal resurrections. The morontia form granted upon departure from the mansion world career suffices until the end of the local universe experience, though it undergoes modifications as needed. Seven times do those passing through the entire mansonia career experience the adjustment sleep and resurrection awakening, but the final resurrection hall remains behind on the seventh mansion world. The mortal personality, initiated on evolutionary worlds and tabernacled in flesh, is not fully mobilized until receiving clearance for Edentia and being proclaimed a true member of the morontia corps of Nebadon—an immortal survivor of Adjuster association, a Paradise ascender, a personality of morontia status, and a true child of the Most Highs.