Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/368

302 surety. They are in reality living, automatic libraries. The facts of the universes are inherent in these primary supernaphim, actually recorded in these angels; and it is also inherently impossible for an untruth to gain lodgment in the minds of these perfect and replete repositories of the truth of eternity and the intelligence of time.

These custodians conduct informal courses of instruction for the residents of the eternal Isle, but their chief function is that of reference and verification. Any sojourner on Paradise may at will have by his side the living repository of the particular fact or truth he may wish to know. At the northern extremity of the Isle there are available the living finders of knowledge, who will designate the director of the group holding the information sought, and forthwith will appear the brilliant beings who are the very thing you wish to know. No longer must you seek enlightenment from engrossed pages; you now commune with living intelligence face to face. Supreme knowledge you thus obtain from the living beings who are its final custodians.

When you locate that supernaphim who is exactly what you desire to verify, you will find available all the known facts of all universes, for these custodians of knowledge are the final and living summaries of the vast network of the recording angels, ranging from the seraphim and seconaphim of the local and superuniverses to the chief recorders of the tertiary supernaphim in Havona. And this living accumulation of knowledge is distinct from the formal records of Paradise, the cumulative summary of universal history.

The wisdom of truth takes origin in the divinity of the central universe, but knowledge, experiential knowledge, largely has its beginnings in the domains of time and space—therefore the necessity for the maintenance of the far-flung superuniverse organizations of the recording seraphim and supernaphim sponsored by the Celestial Recorders.

These primary supernaphim who are inherently in possession of universe knowledge are also responsible for its organization and classification. In constituting themselves the living reference library of the universe of universes, they have classified knowledge into seven grand orders, each having about one million subdivisions. The facility with which the residents of Paradise can consult this vast store of knowledge is solely due to the voluntary and wise efforts of the custodians of knowledge. The custodians are also the exalted teachers of the central universe, freely giving out their living treasures to all beings on any of the Havona circuits, and they are extensively, though indirectly, utilized by the courts of the Ancients of Days. But this living library, which is available to the central and superuniverses, is not accessible to the local creations. Only by indirection and reflectively are the benefits of Paradise knowledge secured in the local universes.

Next to the supreme satisfaction of worship is the exhilaration of philosophy. Never do you climb so high or advance so far that there do not remain a thousand mysteries which demand the employment of philosophy in an attempted solution.

The master philosophers of Paradise delight to lead the minds of its inhabitants, both native and ascendant, in the exhilarating pursuit of attempting to solve universe problems. These superaphic masters of philosophy are the "wise