Alien Religion 3 of 3

#3 of 3

6. The so-called "leader" is just Celestial Seasonings mogul Mo Siegle.

The first time I met any group of Urantia readers was at a gathering near Chicago in 1974. At the time, the only other folks I knew who had ever even heard of the book were my older brother who introduced the book to me and, separately, to my childhood chum Tom. Tom was excited to find out about the Urantia "Brotherhood," and proposed we travel to their meeting. I was more wary - I didn't want to find out there was some Divine Light Mission or Scientology-like cult ruining this intriguing book. (I mostly saw a chance to visit a gal I'd met in college, she who is today my beloved companion of over four decades and mother of our three offspring.)

The folks at that early gathering mostly looked like anyone I'd meet at the local Episcopal Church (in the old days). Businessmen and homemakers. Seigel's flowered van-full of Colorado hippies were about the only other long-hair and blue-jeans types at that gathering - besides myself.

The general idea back then was of promoting the book by slow growth: basically individual-to-individual ("have you heard of this?") and small living-room study groups. Later generations of UB fans were not so sedate about popularizing the book, with results that I don't consider entirely welcome. As the Breitbart article exemplifies.

Mo was a funny guy. He told this joke... well, another time for that.

In short, in subsequent decades, after some internal clashes among fans of the book, and problems among the official "Brotherhood" and other clots of readers, Mo bought his way onto the board of directors of the publisher, the Urantia Foundation. Not knocking that. Foundations need money.

As he has always been a Colorado hipster, I'm not all that surprised Mo's a Hillary supporter, although I am disappointed, as I am in most of the moovement's latter generations' politics and social attitudes. You know that saying about any organization not specifically geared toward conservatism becomes liberal? Yeah.

You can see, perhaps, why I resent Mo's associating his progressive politics with this great work. However, Mo is hardly the worst of those who pretend to "leadership" while wielding a UB. An apocalyptic sub-cult many years ago, fortunately, ended with disappointment and bitterness, not newsmaking suicides. There's a guy in the Southwest who has headed up one of the better-known cults waving the UB. As I said, humans. Meh.

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On the whole, I just find this kind of publicity for the UB distorting, misleading, and unpleasant. It seems to me that it encourages the liberal-ish flakey blare-about-it factions and discourages many more thoughtful and quiet folks who might genuinely appreciate the book, one way or another.

In conclusion (at last): as with with the Bible... or anything... remember Gell-Mann. Don't believe the articles, pro or con, don't listen to the cultists, and certainly don't buy Breitbart writer Patrick Howley about it.

If you really want to know what it's about, you can read the book, free online and downloadable, at Urantia.org.

Apologies again for the wall-o-text. Someday, I'll write that book thread article about it I really wanted to. Not today.