Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/459

Rh all local universe administrators. In executive ability they are excelled only by Gabriel and his unrevealed associates.

The Lanonandeks are the continuous rulers of the planets and the rotating sovereigns of the systems. Such a Son now rules on Jerusem, the headquarters of your local system of inhabited worlds.

The System Sovereigns rule in commissions of two or three on the headquarters of each system of inhabited worlds. The Constellation Father names one of these Lanonandeks as chief every dekamillennium. Sometimes no change in the head of the trio is made, the matter being entirely optional with the constellation rulers. System governments do not suddenly change in personnel unless a tragedy of some sort occurs.

When System Sovereigns or assistants are recalled, their places are filled by selections made by the supreme council located on the constellation headquarters from the reserves of that order, a group which is larger on Edentia than the average indicated.

The supreme Lanonandek councils are stationed on the various constellation headquarters. Such a body is presided over by the senior Most High associate of the Constellation Father, while the junior associate supervises the reserves of the secondary order.

The System Sovereigns are true to their names; they are well-nigh sovereign in the local affairs of the inhabited worlds. They are almost paternal in their direction of the Planetary Princes, the Material Sons, and the ministering spirits. The personal grasp of the sovereign is all but complete. These rulers are not supervised by Trinity observers from the central universe. They are the executive division of the local universe, and as custodians of the enforcement of legislative mandates and as executives for the application of judicial verdicts, they present the one place in all universe administration where personal disloyalty to the will of the Michael Son could most easily and readily intrench itself and seek to assert itself.

Our local universe has been unfortunate in that over seven hundred Sons of the Lanonandek order have rebelled against the universe government, thus precipitating confusion in several systems and on numerous planets. Of this entire number of failures only three were System Sovereigns; practically all of these Sons belonged to the second and third orders, Planetary Princes and tertiary Lanonandeks.

The large number of these Sons who have lapsed from integrity does not indicate any fault in creatorship. They could have been made divinely perfect, but they were so created that they might better understand, and draw near to, the evolutionary creatures dwelling on the worlds of time and space.

Of all the local universes in Orvonton, our universe has, with the exception of Henselon, lost the largest number of this order of Sons. On Uversa it is the consensus that we have had so much administrative trouble in Nebadon because our Sons of the Lanonandek order have been created with such a large degree of personal liberty in choosing and planning. I do not make this observation by way of criticism. The Creator of our universe has full authority and power to do this. It is the contention of our high rulers that, while such free-choosing