LA JOLLA, CA — Philip “Propagandee” Geiger, my one and only blog bro here at Urantian Sojourn, graduated from life on Urantia Monday evening. He had been in ICU for three weeks following a horrendous surgery to remove blockages from his lungs and to repair damage to his heart. Faced with this terminal condition which gave him maybe a year to live and made it hard to catch a breath with even mild exertion, he opted for the surgery. He saw it as a definite win-win situation: they could fix the worst of the problem with his material body— or he would wind up with a new one, on a new world.
Usually, an obituary gives you some perfunctory particulars of a person’s accomplishments during their brief sojourn on this planet, and a listing of relatives who “survive” the deceased. They are written as if a person’s life has actually ended and now they cease to exist. But Phil’s transit to the next stage of universe existence is the perfect instance to attempt to awaken those who might read this to the reality of the Father’s plan of universe ascension.
You see, Phil is a “Urantian”— a longtime student of The Urantia Book here, on the “World Of The Cross.” And because he fully believed in the precious promise of eternal life presented through this amazing revelation, he knew that mortal identity on a world like ours is a very transient time-life condition in the universe, and he understood that no one knows how long they have here. That’s why Phil was betting on a sure thing; if he didn’t survive the operation— which at one point he was told it was a fifty-fifty proposition— his mortal identity, his soul and his spirit, would be transported and reassembled in a new form, on the next world in our ascendant careers. Indeed, that is what has happened, and I would like to explain in more detail how that comes about, through insights from The Urantia Book.
The situation which makes repersonalization possible is brought about in “the resurrection halls of the receiving planets of a local universe.”* Here in these life-assembly chambers the supervising authorities provide that relationship of universe energy— soul, mindal, and spiritual— which makes possible the reconsciousizing of the sleeping survivor. The reassembly of the constituent parts of a onetime material personality involves:
The fabrication of a suitable form, a [soul] energy pattern, in which the new survivor can make contact with nonspiritual reality, and within which the [necessary] variant of the cosmic mind can be encircuited.
The return of the [Indwelling Spirit] to the waiting creature. The [Indwelling Spirit] is the eternal custodian of your ascending identity; your [Indwelling Spirit] is the absolute assurance that you yourself and not another will occupy the form created for your personality awakening. And the [Indwelling Spirit] will be present at your personality reassembly to take up once more the role of Paradise guide to your surviving self.
When these prerequisites of repersonalization have been assembled, the seraphic custodian of the potentialities of the slumbering immortal soul, with the assistance of numerous cosmic personalities, bestows this entity upon and in the awaiting mind-body form while committing this evolutionary child of the Supreme to eternal association with the waiting [Indwelling Spirit]. And this completes the repersonalization, reassembly of memory, insight, and consciousness— identity.
The fact of repersonalization consists in the seizure of the encircuited [soul] phase of the newly segregated cosmic mind by the awakening human self. The phenomenon of personality is dependent on the persistence of the identity of selfhood reaction to universe environment; and this can only be effected through the medium of mind.
Selfhood persists in spite of a continuous change in all the factor components of self; in the physical life the change is gradual; at death, and upon repersonalization, the change is sudden. The true reality of all selfhood (personality) is able to function responsively to universe conditions by virtue of the unceasing changing of its constituent parts; stagnation terminates in inevitable death. Human life is an endless change of the factors of life unified by the stability of the unchanging personality.
When you awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Adjuster [indwelling Spirit] and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have difficulty in connecting the new … consciousness with the reviving memory of your previous identity. Notwithstanding the continuity of personal selfhood, much of the mortal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clarify many mortal associations.
The Thought Adjuster [indwelling Spirit] will recall and rehearse for you only those memories and experiences which are a part of, and essential to, your universe career. If the Adjuster has been a partner in the evolution of aught in the human mind, then will these worth-while experiences survive in the eternal consciousness of the Adjuster.
But much of your past life and its memories, having neither spiritual meaning nor morontia* value, will perish with the material brain; much of material experience will pass away as onetime scaffolding which, having bridged you over to the morontia* level, no longer serves a purpose in the universe. But personality and the relationships between personalities are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality relationships has cosmic value and will persist. On the mansion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by, your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia.¹
But eternal life is a choice: Our identity is real only in so far as any person elects to become a continuing universe phenomenon. The Indwelling Spirit is truly our path to Paradise, but each of us must pursue that path by our own deciding and freewill choosing. And it is this very power of choice— the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood— that constitutes our greatest opportunity, and in fact, our supreme cosmic responsibility.
Upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Spirit within depends for eternal personality; all will creatures are to experience one true opportunity to make one undoubted, self-conscious, and final choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.
THE URANTIA BOOK:
There is something real, something of human evolution, something additional to the [Indwelling Spirit], which survives death. This newly appearing entity is the soul, and it survives the death of both your physical body and your material mind. This entity is the conjoint child of the combined life and efforts of the human you in liaison with the divine you, the [Indwelling Spirit]. This child of human and divine parentage constitutes the surviving element of terrestrial origin; it is the immortal soul.
This child of persisting meaning and surviving value is wholly unconscious during the period from death to repersonalization and is in the keeping of the seraphic destiny guardian throughout this season of waiting. You will not function as a conscious being, following death, until you attain the new consciousness of [soul] on the mansion worlds.
At death, the functional identity associated with the human personality is disrupted through the cessation of vital motion. Human personality, while transcending its constituent parts, is dependent on them for functional identity. The stoppage of life destroys the physical brain patterns for mind endowment, and the disruption of mind terminates mortal consciousness. The consciousness of that creature cannot subsequently reappear until a cosmic situation has been arranged which will permit the same human personality again to function in relationship with living energy.
During the transit of surviving mortals from the world of origin to the mansion worlds, whether they experience personality reassembly on the third period or ascend at the time of a group resurrection, the record of personality constitution is faithfully preserved by the archangels on their worlds of special activities. These beings are not the custodians of personality (as the guardian seraphim are of the soul), but it is nonetheless true that every identifiable factor of personality is effectually safeguarded in the custody of these dependable trustees of mortal survival. As to the exact whereabouts of mortal personality during the time intervening between death and survival, we do not know.
And when you thus awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not for your [Indwelling Spirit] and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have difficulty in connecting your new consciousness with the reviving memory of your previous identity. Notwithstanding the continuity of personal selfhood, much of the mortal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clarify many mortal associations.
The [Indwelling Spirit] will recall and rehearse for you only those memories and experiences which are a part of, and essential to, your universe career. If the [Indwelling Spirit] has been a partner in the evolution of aught in the human mind, then will these worth-while experiences survive in the eternal consciousness of the [Indwelling Spirit]. But much of your past life and its memories, having neither spiritual meaning nor survival value, will perish with the material brain; much of material experience will pass away as onetime scaffolding which, having bridged you over to the next level, no longer serves a purpose in the universe. But personality and the relationships between personalities are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality relationships has cosmic value and will persist. On the mansion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by, your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia.¹
Despite all that, and the joy it brings through the recognition of its truth, those of us who knew Phil in this life are still going to miss him and all the things we came to love about him. But until we ourselves make this transition and are repersonalized, and stand in the presence of all those who’ve gone before us and those who have made such an amazing transition possible, we must continue to know these things through our living faith; which is exactly the way Phil lived his life here, and who has no doubt now realized these very truths in reality.
Until then. . .
• • •
* See: The First Mansion World
¹ This entire quote was edited for clarity of terms.
(See Phil’s bio on our About page)
Hi Lenny, thanks for your thoughts on Phil (and Stan); yep, Phil was an excitable boy, as his writings here prove. For a vertically impaired guy like Phil, he left an enormous pair of shoes to fill here at USojo, and well, on the planet. Since nobody really knows how long they have here, I hope requiems like this one (and Stan Hartman’s) will persuade those who have yet to discover their spiritual destiny to take a look at The Urantia Book, and read it while they are still ON Urantia.
I’m already experiencing a re-ordering of my earthly priorities, realizing there’s still a lot of things that I waste time on that could be better spent getting my stuff together in the time I have left here on the world of our nativity.
Ciao, brother
Phil would like what you’ve written. And regardless (if re-awoke in 3 or slept till later) I wonder if Stan would have been given a chance to be there. After all, upon awaking and breathing in his first full deep breath in almost a decade he would probably be bouncing off the walls. Perhaps his TA warned them, or least his guardian angels and hopefully they would have put on some extra staff to keep him from escaping before his orientation was completed. Gee, do you think they may have needed to gag him so they could get a word in ? With his new lungs filled, waiting until he stopped commenting on his new surroundings and mental awareness and could take a week !!!
I miss talking to Stan (a lot) and now I’m missing Phil. I just finished reading his book on my flight to London. I loved it and of course had questions … but it no longer matters.
He’s going to miss a lot of scariness (in the months ahead of the election) and I’m going to miss his commentary.
Lenny