Paper 67 Overview: The Planetary Rebellion

The planetary rebellion on Urantia was a significant turning point in the planet's history that profoundly altered the course of social evolution and spiritual development, though it did not significantly impede biological evolution. This devastating calamity began when Caligastia, who had been the Planetary Prince for 300,000 years, chose to betray Urantia by joining Lucifer's rebellion against the universe government. The rebellion was declared when Caligastia demanded all administrative authority be transferred to his associate Daligastia, leading to a decisive split among the planetary administrators and celestial beings stationed on Urantia.

For seven crucial years, Van and his loyal associates, including the remarkable human Amadon, stood firmly against the rebellion despite being cut off from all outside counsel. Eventually, the authorities from Edentia intervened, confirming Van's vindication and beginning the long process of planetary rehabilitation. The rebellion's consequences were far-reaching, disrupting the progress that had been planned for Urantia and creating repercussions that would affect society for hundreds of thousands of years, yet it also produced inspiring examples of loyalty and devotion that benefited the entire universe.

Understanding the problems associated with human existence on Urantia requires knowledge of certain pivotal epochs in the planet's past, particularly the occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion. Although this devastating upheaval did not seriously interfere with organic evolution, it profoundly modified the course of social evolution and spiritual development on the planet. The entire superphysical history of Urantia was deeply influenced by this calamitous event that would shape the planet's development for ages to come.

Caligastia had been Urantia's Planetary Prince for 300,000 years when Satan, Lucifer's assistant, made one of his periodic inspection visits. During this inspection, Satan informed Caligastia about Lucifer's proposed "Declaration of Liberty," and Caligastia agreed to betray the planet when the rebellion was announced. This premeditated betrayal of trust earned the contempt of loyal universe personalities, including the Creator Son who compared Caligastia to Lucifer, saying both had perpetuated iniquity and were falsifiers from the beginning of their self-exaltation.

In the administrative work of a local universe, no trust is considered more sacred than the responsibility given to a Planetary Prince who oversees the welfare of evolving mortals on a newly inhabited world. By deliberately committing this sin of betrayal and showing disloyalty to his confiding friends, Caligastia so completely distorted his personality that his mind never fully regained its balance. From the universe philosophical viewpoint, sin is a personality knowingly resisting cosmic reality, while error is misconception of reality, evil is partial realization of or maladjustment to universe realities, and iniquity is open defiance of recognized reality indicating personality disintegration bordering on cosmic insanity.

Shortly after Satan's inspection and as the planetary administration was about to achieve great accomplishments on Urantia, Caligastia held a long meeting with Daligastia, after which the ten councils of Urantia were called into extraordinary session. The assembly began with Caligastia demanding that all administrative groups resign their functions and powers to Daligastia pending governmental reorganization, essentially proclaiming himself absolute sovereign of Urantia. Van, chairman of the supreme council of co-ordination, delivered a masterful response branding Caligastia's proposal as bordering on planetary rebellion and appealed to his colleagues to abstain from participation until an appeal could be made to Lucifer.

When the appeal reached Jerusem, the orders returned designated Caligastia as supreme sovereign and commanded absolute allegiance to his mandates. In response, Van made a memorable seven-hour speech formally indicting Daligastia, Caligastia, and Lucifer for contempt of the sovereignty of the universe of Nebadon, and appealed to the Most Highs of Edentia for support. Meanwhile, the system circuits had been severed, isolating Urantia and cutting off all celestial beings on the planet from outside counsel. Daligastia proclaimed Caligastia "God of Urantia and supreme over all," clearly drawing the battle lines as each group withdrew to deliberate on their position in this momentous conflict that would determine the fate of every superhuman personality on the planet.

News of the rebellion on Jerusem was broadcast by the Melchizedek council, and emergency Melchizedeks were immediately dispatched to Jerusem while Gabriel volunteered to represent the Creator Son whose authority had been challenged. With this announcement of rebellion in Satania, the system was isolated and quarantined from sister systems, initiating what was described as "war in heaven" at the headquarters of Satania which then spread to every planet in the local system.

On Urantia, forty members of the corporeal staff of one hundred, including Van, refused to join the insurrection, displaying remarkable loyalty. There were significant losses among the seraphim and cherubim, with almost half of the administrator and transition seraphim assigned to the planet joining the rebellion, as did over forty thousand of the primary midway creatures. The disloyal Prince organized these rebels to execute his orders, while Van assembled the loyal midwayers and other faithful groups to fight for the salvation of the planetary staff and other marooned celestial personalities. Throughout the seven crucial years of the Caligastia rebellion, Van devoted himself entirely to ministering to his loyal army, displaying spiritual insight and moral steadfastness that came from clear thinking, wise reasoning, logical judgment, sincere motivation, unselfish purpose, intelligent loyalty, experiential memory, disciplined character, and unwavering dedication to doing the Father's will.

When the final tally was completed, the corporeal members of the Prince's staff had divided their allegiance as follows: Van and his entire court of co-ordination remained loyal, along with Ang and three members of the food council, Fad and five members of the educational faculty, Hap and the entire college of revealed religion, and five members of the commission on industry and trade. In total, forty out of the original one hundred were saved and later transferred to Jerusem where they resumed their Paradise journey.

The sixty staff members who rebelled chose Nod as their leader and worked enthusiastically for the rebel Prince, but soon discovered they were cut off from the sustenance of the system life circuits and reduced to mortal status. To increase their numbers, Daligastia ordered them to reproduce sexually, knowing they would eventually face extinction through death. After Dalamatia fell, the disloyal staff migrated north and east, with their descendants becoming known as the Nodites. The presence of these extraordinary supermen and superwomen, mating with the sons and daughters of earth, gave rise to legends about gods coming down to mate with mortals, which became embedded in the folklore of various peoples whose ancestors had contact with the Nodites.

Great confusion reigned in and around Dalamatia for almost fifty years after the rebellion began. The rebels attempted a complete reorganization of the entire world, replacing evolution with revolution as their policy for advancement and improvement. Among the superior and partially trained people near Dalamatia, there appeared a sudden advancement in cultural status, but when these radical methods were attempted among outlying populations, the result was indescribable confusion and racial chaos.

The seditious staff soon found themselves defending the city against hordes of semisavages who were attacking as a result of being prematurely taught doctrines of liberty. Years before Dalamatia was eventually submerged beneath the southern waves, misled tribes from the hinterlands had already driven the rebellious staff northward. Caligastia's scheme to immediately reconstruct human society according to his ideas of individual freedom and group liberties proved a swift and nearly complete failure. Society quickly regressed to its old biological level, and the forward struggle had to begin again, with the world left in worse confusion than before the Caligastia regime. A final blow came 162 years after the rebellion when a tidal wave swept over Dalamatia, submerging the planetary headquarters beneath the sea and obliterating nearly every vestige of the noble culture of those splendid ages.

Van's followers withdrew to the highlands west of India where they were protected from attacks by the confused races of the lowlands. From this retreat, they planned for the rehabilitation of the world, much as their early Badonite predecessors had unknowingly worked for mankind's welfare before the Sangik tribes emerged. Before the Melchizedek receivers arrived, Van placed the administration of human affairs in the hands of ten commissions of four each, identical to the structure under the Prince's original regime.

The senior resident Life Carriers temporarily led this council of forty during the seven years of waiting, and when the thirty-nine loyal staff members returned to Jerusem, similar groups of Amadonites took on these responsibilities. The Amadonites were derived from the group of 144 loyal Andonites associated with Amadon, including thirty-nine men and one hundred and five women, of whom fifty-six had immortality status. Van was left on Urantia until Adam's time, serving as titular head of all superhuman personalities on the planet, while he and Amadon were sustained by the tree of life and specialized life ministry of the Melchizedeks for over 150,000 years.

The personal consequences of a creature's willful rejection of light are inevitable, individual, and only concern Deity and that personal being, resulting in a soul-destroying harvest within the iniquitous person. However, the impersonal consequences of embraced sin are both inevitable and collective, affecting every creature within range of such events. By fifty thousand years after the collapse of the planetary administration, earthly affairs were so disorganized that humanity had gained very little over the general evolutionary status that existed when Caligastia arrived 350,000 years earlier.

Sin is never purely local in its effects, as the administrative sectors of the universe function as an interconnected organism where the difficulties of one personality must be shared to some extent by all. The transgression of universe law may be fatal in the physical realm without seriously affecting the mind or spiritual experience; however, sin endangers personality survival only when it represents the attitude of the whole being, standing for the choosing of the mind and willing of the soul. While sin on Urantia did little to delay biological evolution, it enormously retarded intellectual development, moral growth, social progress, and spiritual attainment, depriving the mortal races of the full benefit of the Adamic inheritance.

The Lucifer rebellion was resisted by many courageous beings across the various worlds of Satania, but Amadon stands out in the records of Salvington as the most outstanding character in the entire system for his glorious rejection of the rebel forces. Together with Van, he remained unmoved in his loyalty to the supremacy of the invisible Father and his Son Michael throughout the devastating conflict. The author of this paper, stationed on Edentia at the time, recalls the exhilaration felt when reading the Salvington broadcasts that daily reported the incredible steadfastness and transcendent devotion of this onetime semisavage from the original Andonic race.

For seven long years, from Edentia through Salvington and even to Uversa, the first question from all subordinate celestial life regarding the Satania rebellion was always: "What of Amadon of Urantia, does he still stand unmoved?" While the Lucifer rebellion has hindered the local system and its fallen worlds, the inspiring performance of Amadon and his 143 comrades in standing firm for higher concepts of universe management against tremendous opposition has done more good in the universe of Nebadon and the superuniverse of Orvonton than all the evil of the rebellion. This magnificent example illuminates the wisdom of the Father's universal plan for recruiting the Corps of Mortal Finality largely from the common clay of ascending mortals—just like the impregnable Amadon.