Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/492



S FAR as we are cognizant, the Infinite Spirit, as personalized on the local universe headquarters, intends to produce uniformly perfect seraphim, but for some unknown reason these seraphic offspring are very diverse. This diversity may be a result of the unknown interposition of evolving experiential Deity; if so, we cannot prove it. But we do observe that, when seraphim have been subjected to educational tests and training discipline, they unfailingly and distinctly classify into the following seven groups:

Supreme Seraphim. Superior Seraphim. Supervisor Seraphim. Administrator Seraphim. Planetary Helpers. Transition Ministers. Seraphim of the Future.

To say that any one seraphim is inferior to an angel of any other group would hardly be true. Nevertheless every angel is at first service-limited to the group of original and inherent classification. My seraphic associate in the preparation of this statement, Manotia, is a supreme seraphim and onetime functioned only as a supreme seraphim. By application and devoted service she has, one by one, achieved all seven of the seraphic services, having functioned in well-nigh every avenue of activity open to a seraphim, and now holds the commission of associate chief of seraphim on Urantia.

Human beings sometimes find it hard to understand that a created capacity for higher-level ministry does not necessarily imply ability to function on relatively lower service levels. Man begins life as a helpless infant; hence every mortal attainment must embrace all experiential prerequisites; seraphim have no such preadult life—no childhood. They are, however, experiential creatures, and by experience and through additional education they can augment their divine and inherent endowment of ability by the experiential acquirement of functional skill in one or more of the seraphic services.

After being commissioned, seraphim are assigned to the reserves of their inherent group. Those of planetary and administrator status often serve for long periods as originally classified, but the higher the inherent function level, the more persistently do the angelic ministers seek assignment to the lower orders of universe service. Especially do they desire assignment to the reserves of the planetary helpers, and if successful they enroll in the celestial schools attached