How I Found the Urantia Book - Square Circles Publishing

34 How I Found the Urantia Book
the phonograph. He laid before me a rather large blue book and said, “This will
blow your mind!” That was new slang at the time. I asked him what the heck
“Urantia” was, and he replied with a knowing smile, “It’s the name of the planet
we live on.”
Well, that surely activated my somewhat befuddled brain synapses and fueled
my curiosity. I opened the book to the front and began to scan its contents. Thus
was launched a ten-hour reading marathon which became one of the prime moments
of my life. With Jim Morrison playing in the background, and surrounded
with musk incense and the sweet odors of our herbal product, I began reading
one of the few books that has remained a favorite for over thirty years.
My initial impression looking through the table of contents was, “This can’t
be for real! This sucker was published when I was six years old!” I found it hard
to believe that I had not heard of the book prior to that evening. The first section
I read was “The Lucifer Rebellion,” and it truly did “blow my mind”! I then read
“Problems of the Lucifer Rebellion,” the Adam and Eve papers, the Melchizedek
and religion papers, and finally, “Government on a Neighboring Planet.”
When I “came to” around 10 o’clock the following morning and closed the
book, I experienced a unique, paradoxical sensation. I knew I should be drained
and exhausted, yet I felt so energized. I felt suffused with a sense of other-worldliness,
but it was not disassociative, as with chemicals. My overriding realization
that day (and to this day, in varying degrees) was that we are all stuck on this
“third rock from the sun” together. The brotherhood of man became very real to
me that day, and has remained so ever since.
That night I started reading the Jesus papers and finished them, pausing only
for sleep and food, in about four days. My view of Jesus was forever changed.
What a cool dude! He was nothing like the pious portrayal that had turned me
away from the Bible so long ago. My comprehension of his masterful personality
is still expanding, and I doubt it will ever stop.
LARRY MULLINS: Clyde Bedell, a man who I consider to be “great in the
invisible kingdom,” handed me a copy of the Urantia Book in California back in
1968. He was 72 years old at the time and had been acquainted with the Urantia
Papers since 1924. I knew Clyde as a pragmatic, tough, brilliant advertising
expert, author and businessman, so he shocked me when he said he believed the
text had been produced and materialized by celestial beings. This put me off.
However, he added a mitigating comment which I recalled later: “But forget all
of that. Judge the Urantia Papers by their content. If I told you that I knew for
sure they were written by angels, it would be the worst reason of all for you to
believe them. There is a part of God in you that will tell you whether they are
true or not.” I was impressed to some degree by the material, but I was sure I
did not need it. I had already settled all of these questions in my mind, or so I
believed.
A couple of years later, I watched Clyde give a talk on books for a women’s
club in Santa Barbara. Clyde had an astounding library, and showed slides of
first editions and unusual books, some of which were worth a fortune. He even
had handwritten tomes from the Middle Ages. I was a bit surprised when Clyde’s
final slide showed a copy of the Urantia Book. I was concerned he would empty
out the place when he started talking about it. He said, “If I had to relinquish
all of these books but one, this is the one I would keep.” He said very little else