Philosophy of religion pervades The Urantia Book. It is found especially in papers 101-03; in many of my articles in the part of this site on The Urantia Book movement; and in Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, especially in chapter 3 on the truths of spiritual experience. See also the materials from my class on world religions–including methods of study).
The possibility of spiritual experience in realms of truth, beauty, and goodness . . . and love, mercy, and ministry . . . is the most heartening and enthralling dimension of our progressive adventure in God. And . . . (but?) one of the most important truths of spiritual experience is that our discernment is a work in progress. It is often less marvelous than we think, and sometimes we regard an experience as spiritual when it is not.
How can we distinguish the divine guidance from the leadings of our own mind?
When we persistently mobilize all our personality powers of mind, soul, and body by faith to seek the will of God . . . the message is seek and you shall find. But this does not mean that we always get it right. The Creator has designed a learning process for us. In this learning process there is no litmus test that tells us the difference between subconscious and superconscious inputs into the mind.
The conditions of effective prayer (91:9/1002) are tremendously helpful. The section on mysticism, ecstasy and inspiration is one place where we are told some factors that make it more likely to suspect subconscious inputs and other factors that promote superconscious harmony. But in our blessed adventure of growth, there is no fail-safe criterion that the human intellect can apply.
It takes great humility to play leap-frog, so to speak with growth in wisdom and growth in spiritual experience: kneeling down with one’s spiritual confidence as wisdom leaps over that confidence—which may be premature.
91:7.4 (1000.5) The human mind may perform in response to so-called inspiration when it is sensitive either to the uprisings of the subconscious or to the stimulus of the superconscious. In either case it appears to the individual that such augmentations of the content of consciousness are more or less foreign.
110:4.2 (1207.2) You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.
110:4.3 (1207.3) Certain abrupt presentations of thoughts, conclusions, and other pictures of mind are sometimes the direct or indirect work of the Adjuster; but far more often they are the sudden emergence into consciousness of ideas which have been grouping themselves together in the submerged mental levels, natural and everyday occurrences of normal and ordinary psychic function inherent in the circuits of the evolving animal mind. (In contrast with these subconscious emanations, the revelations of the Adjuster appear through the realms of the superconscious.)
110:5.5 (1208.4) It is hazardous to attempt the differentiation of the Adjusters’ concept registry from the more or less continuous and conscious reception of the dictations of mortal conscience. These are problems which will have to be solved through individual discrimination and personal decision. But a human being would do better to err in rejecting an Adjuster’s expression through believing it to be a purely human experience than to blunder into exalting a reaction of the mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignity. Remember, the influence of a Thought Adjuster is for the most part, though not wholly, a superconscious experience.
110:5.6 (1208.5) In varying degrees and increasingly as you ascend the psychic circles, sometimes directly, but more often indirectly, you do communicate with your Adjusters. But it is dangerous to entertain the idea that every new concept originating in the human mind is the dictation of the Adjuster. More often, in beings of your order, that which you accept as the Adjuster’s voice is in reality the emanation of your own intellect. This is dangerous ground, and every human being must settle these problems for himself in accordance with his natural human wisdom and superhuman insight.
The solution to this problem is to grow progressively in our understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness and exercise our own responsibility to scientifically consider, philosophically interpret, and spiritually evaluate our experiences.
