The Urantia Book (sometimes called The Urantia Papers or The Fifth Epochal Revelation) is a spiritual, philosophical, and religious book that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States, sometime between 1924 and 1955. The text, which claims to have been composed by celestial beings, introduces the word "Urantia" as the name of the planet Earth and states that its intent is to "present enlarged concepts and advanced truth". The book aims to unite religion, science, and philosophy. Its large amount of content on topics of interest to science is unique among documents said to have been received from celestial beings. Among other topics, the book discusses the origin and meaning of life, mankind's place in the universe, the history of Earth, the relationship between God and people, and the life of Jesus. The Urantia Foundation, a U.S.-based non-profit group, first published The Urantia Book in 1955. In 2001, a jury found that the English-language book's copyright was no longer valid in the United States after 1983. Therefore, the English text of the book became a public domain work in the United States, and in 2006 the international copyright expired. How it arrived at the form published in 1955 is unclear and a matter of debate. The book itself claims that its "basis" is found in "more than one thousand human concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge". Analysis of The Urantia Book has found that it repeated portions of numerous pre-existing published works by human authors with only the above "basis" as attribution. Despite this general acknowledgment of derivation from human authors, the book contains no specific references to those sources. It has received both praise and criticism for its religious and science-related content, and is noted for its unusual length and the unusual names and origins of its reputed celestial contributors.
Background
Authorship
The exact circumstances of the origin of The Urantia Book are unknown. The book and its publishers do not name a human author. Instead, it is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an "epochal" religious revelation. William S. Sadler and his wife Lena Sadler, physicians in Chicago and well known in the community, are said to have been approached as early as 1911 by a neighbor who was concerned because she would occasionally find her husband in a deep sleep and breathing abnormally. She reported that she was unable to wake him at these times. The Sadlers came to observe the episodes, and over time, the individual produced verbal communications that claimed to be from "student visitor" spiritual beings. This changed sometime in early 1925 with a "voluminous handwritten document," which from then on became the regular method of purported communication. The individual was never identified publicly but has been described as "a hard-boiled business man, member of the board of trade and stock exchange". The Sadlers were both respected physicians, and William Sadler was a sometime debunker of paranormal claims. In 1929, he published a book called The Mind at Mischief, in which he explained the fraudulent methods of mediums and how self-deception leads to psychic claims. He wrote in an appendix that there were two cases that he had not explained to his satisfaction:
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
