Paper 50 Overview: The Planetary Princes

Planetary Princes are specialized Lanonandek Sons who serve as the first rulers of evolutionary inhabited worlds. They are dispatched to planets after the Life Carriers have established intelligent life, bringing with them a staff of helpers to begin the first administration of a developing world. These princes represent the closest personalized approach from the Eternal Son to the creatures of the realm, functioning as the sole representative of complete divinity on newly inhabited planets.

The mission of the Planetary Princes involves organizing schools and training centers to educate the more advanced members of primitive races, who then return to uplift their own peoples. While most Planetary Princes succeed in their missions to advance civilization through seven progressive epochs, some have fallen to rebellion due to their isolated positions. On Urantia, the plans for planetary progress were advancing well until Caligastia's adherence to Lucifer's rebellion brought this development to an abrupt end, causing lasting setbacks that continue to affect earth's irregular evolutionary progression.

Planetary Princes belong to the order of Lanonandek Sons but are considered a specialized group due to their particular service role. After receiving Melchizedek certification as secondary Lanonandeks, these local universe Sons are assigned to reserves on constellation headquarters, from which the System Sovereign may eventually commission them as Planetary Princes. The System Sovereign sends a ruler to a planet after receiving a request from the Life Carriers who have established life and developed intelligent evolutionary beings on that world.

The Planetary Prince represents the closest personalized approach that the Eternal Son of Paradise can make to the evolutionary creatures of time and space, aside from actual incarnation. As the sole representative of complete divinity on a newly inhabited world, the prince springs from the Creator Son and Divine Minister, surrounded by a loyal corps of helpers and assistants. The directing corps of these new worlds must be composed of lower orders of administrators who can sympathetically understand the problems and difficulties of emerging civilizations.

Due to their isolation as representatives of divinity on individual planets, these Sons are severely tested, and Nebadon has suffered from several rebellions. As concepts become personalized farther from the Universal Father and Eternal Son, there is increasing danger of losing proper perspective regarding self-importance and values. Despite these challenges, most Planetary Princes succeed in their missions of organization and administration, which helps prepare planets for the subsequent arrival of Material Sons who engraft higher forms of creature life and for the Paradise Sons who judge worlds and inaugurate new dispensations.

All Planetary Princes operate under the administrative jurisdiction of Gabriel (Michael's chief executive) and are directly subject to the System Sovereigns' authority. These world rulers may seek counsel from their former Melchizedek instructors and can avail themselves of advice from twenty-four counselors assembled from the bestowal worlds of their system. On Satania, these counselors are currently all natives of Urantia, and a similar council of seventy operates at the constellation level.

The rule of early evolutionary planets is largely autocratic, with Planetary Princes organizing specialized assistant groups from their corps of planetary aids. They typically surround themselves with a supreme council of twelve members, variously chosen on different worlds. The prince's staff consists of personalities of the Infinite Spirit and evolved beings from other worlds, initially averaging about one thousand helpers and potentially growing to one hundred thousand as the planet progresses. Each world establishes tribunals of justice presided over by staff members, reflecting a fatherly and discretionary approach to planetary affairs, though higher courts exist for more complex matters.

When going to a young world, a Planetary Prince typically takes a group of volunteer ascending beings from the local system headquarters who serve as advisers and helpers in early race improvement. This corps of material helpers constitutes the connecting link between the prince and the world races. The Urantia Prince, Caligastia, had a corps of one hundred such helpers who accompanied him in his mission.

These volunteer assistants are citizens of a system capital whose Thought Adjusters remain at their residential location while they temporarily return to a material state. The Life Carriers provide these volunteers with new physical bodies that, while exempt from ordinary diseases, remain subject to certain mechanical accidents. Upon completing their mission, usually around the time of the Material Sons' arrival, the prince's corporeal staff transfer their duties to their offspring or superior native volunteers. When they return to the system headquarters, they yield their material bodies to the Life Carriers, enter transition slumber, and awaken in morontia form to resume their Paradise career, one dispensation behind their Jerusem class but enriched by their unique planetary experience.

The prince's corporeal staff establishes planetary schools of training and culture where the most promising individuals from evolutionary races receive instruction and then teach these better ways to their people. These schools are located at the material headquarters of the planet, with much of the physical construction performed by the corporeal staff themselves. The headquarters cities of these early times differ from what Urantia mortals might imagine, featuring mineral embellishment and relatively advanced material construction compared to their era.

In the headquarters settlement on Urantia, every human habitation was provided with abundant land, and time was equally divided between physical labor, social activities, educational application, vocational training, and spiritual culture. While a Planetary Prince remains invisible to mortal beings, these schools of culture and training effectively spread civilization through educated children who return to establish new learning centers in their native communities. On Urantia, these plans for advancement were progressing satisfactorily until Caligastia joined the Lucifer rebellion, bringing a shocking end to this progressive educational system and systematically perverting the teachings in all planetary schools.

Loyal Planetary Princes remain permanently attached to their original assignment worlds, working independently of the higher Sons' missions to foster planetary civilization development. While civilization progresses differently on each planet, all evolutionary spheres advance through certain well-defined directions under the guidance of their princes, Material Sons, and the periodic missions of Paradise Sons.

Under this benign leadership, mortal races on average worlds progressively pass through seven developmental epochs: the nutrition epoch (focused primarily on food acquisition), the security age (developing techniques of war and fortification), the material-comfort era (pursuing luxury and pleasure), the quest for knowledge and wisdom (establishing education systems), the epoch of philosophy and brotherhood (developing ethical society and moral beings), the age of spiritual striving (seeking cosmic understanding and spiritual experience), and finally the era of light and life (achieving harmonious blending of all human accomplishments in cosmic unity and unselfish service). After guiding their spheres through these successive dispensations, Planetary Princes are elevated to Planetary Sovereigns when a world enters the era of light and life.

The isolation of Urantia makes it impossible to provide many details about life and environment on neighboring Satania worlds due to planetary quarantine and system isolation. Within permissible limits, Urantia mortals have been instructed about average evolutionary world development for comparison with earth's current state. When compared with loyal worlds of the universe, Urantia appears confused and significantly retarded in intellectual progress and spiritual attainment, though its development hasn't differed greatly from other isolated worlds.

Even on the most ideal evolutionary worlds, life requires struggle rather than being "a flowery bed of ease." Effort and decision remain essential components in acquiring survival values. Cultural advancement depends on mind quality—superior intellects naturally seek noble culture while inferior minds reject even ready-made higher culture when presented to them. Urantia's circumstances have been particularly challenging due to the two-hundred-thousand-year spiritual ban on Satania following the Lucifer rebellion and the double tragedy of both a rebellious Planetary Prince and a defaulting Material Son. Even Christ Michael's bestowal did not immediately eliminate these serious administrative blunders' temporal consequences.

Although Urantia and similar isolated worlds might initially appear unfortunate without the beneficial presence of superhuman personalities like a proper Planetary Prince and Material Son, this isolation provides their races a unique opportunity to exercise faith and develop confidence in cosmic reliability independent of material considerations. Ultimately, mortal creatures from rebellion-quarantined worlds receive special responsibilities in cosmic undertakings where unquestioned faith and sublime confidence are essential to achievement.

On Jerusem, ascenders from isolated worlds occupy a special residential sector and are known as "agondonters," evolutionary will creatures who can believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable difficulties when alone. This functional grouping persists throughout local universe and superuniverse ascension, disappears during the Havona sojourn, but reappears upon reaching Paradise and remains in the Mortal Finality Corps. Throughout the Paradise career, reward follows effort as natural consequences, setting individuals apart from the average and contributing to versatility in ultimate finaliter performances.