The Urantia Book
Have you ever written a book so bizarre one critic described it as "rivaling the best of science fiction and fantasy"? Have you ever felt like the Bible was not weird enough with its cosmology? Does the thought of combining organizing the cosmology of Scientology, William Blake's mythology, and The Bible turn you on? You must read the Urantia Book.
The Urantia Book is what happens when you mix mythopoeia, Stanley Kubrick movies, LSD, and a desire to rival fucking J.R.R. Tolkien in how large you can write a story. It truly is a classic in the mythopoeic genre, as well as widely regarded as one of the greatest fantasy epics of all time, alongside the Book of Moron, Qur'an, and Lord of the Rings.
Beliefs[edit | edit source]
This book is so strange, that a church, called the Church of the Book of Urantia, tried to form it into a cosmology. Followers, called Urantians, believe that the Book of Urantia was divinely inspired, and that the God of the Book of Urantia slowly revealed to the world the truth. First was the Bible, second was William Blake's prophetic texts, and thirdly, J.R.R. Tolkien for some unknown reason. Stanley Kubrick, known for his experimental films and takes on all sorts of things, is suspected to have written out a portion of the cosmology of the book, owing to J.R.R. Tolkien's original notes and drawing on William Blake's surrealistic mythology, over a very long time. William Blake constructed the earliest drafts in 1791, intending it to be a lengthy summary of his later Prophetic Books. Later, Tolkien discovered the drafts, and began incorporating them into his own personal mythology.
Tolkien is considered a prophet "enlightened" in three stages: first was the Book of Lost Tales, next was the mythos developed alongside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and finally the "fleshing out" of Quenta Silmarillion. All was supposedly well, but then Christopher Tolkien son of John Tolkien had the gall to fulfill his father's dying wishes of editing and publishing the mythology.
If you do not wish to believe all this bizarre stuff, there is a much simpler origin story: when Tolkien started writing the legendarium in 1917, one of his close colleagues had become practically jealous that there wasn't a story more batshit bizarre than the aforementioned Book of Moron. So when Tolkien sent them a brief summary of the Book of Lost Tales, they (it was most likely a she since female Tolkien fans do not exist, also she must've been well over the moon for Tolkien) used the reply and began writing the Urantia Book in a decades-long contest to whom could build the most detailed mythopoeia.
Cosmology[edit | edit source]
Where the real insanity and batshit insane levels start to go off. According to The Silmarillion Urantia Book, there is a "center" of the Universe where Paradise supposedly exists, but the further we go, the more chaotic and evil it gets. Naturally, if Paradise is a light at the center of the Universe, then Earth is the farthest possible planet from it.
God in the Urantia Book[edit | edit source]
God is, as usual, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and also omnipresent. Also, he is "the infinite". What is the infinite? I have absolutely no clue. Because the writer is not above stealing both from fictional Jewish mythology, God is trinitarian. God lives in the aforementioned Isle of Paradise.
Superuniverses[edit | edit source]
Superuniverses, are supposedly a galaxy. Therefore, there is 100 billion Superunivereses, and the Universe is a multiverse, you might think. Unfortunately, this is not how it actually works.
Superuniverses are actually in another Universe, which itself orbits even another universe, which orbits the Isle of Paradise, where God lives. Hence, there are likely infinite universes orbiting other universes still orbiting other universes.
Jesus[edit | edit source]
Jesus is also here. Jesus' life is narrated exactly as in the Gospels; therefore proving the Author is, once again, a fuckwit who couldn't make up a Jesus-esque figure to save his life.
Time[edit | edit source]
Time is a wheel that fully spins at the mark of every 2,000,000,000 years.
Why did they write this?[edit | edit source]
Now that we have gone over the bizarre beliefs and cosmology, there is only one question remaining: who the fuck wrote this (dealt previously) but more importantly: how many pounds of LSD and crack did they take before writing this? And why write it? It is actually fairly obvious: they want money. Think about it, a Jew wrote this. They wanted to rival J.R.R. Tolkien in how large a personal mythology they can write. SO they wrote this book.
Reception[edit | edit source]
Like all great fantasy novels, the reception was mixed. People unanimously praised it for spending the majority of the narrative dumping the cosmology without taking any time to establish a plot beyond "Jesus did miracle and then he died." J.R.R. Tolkien said in a letter shortly after the book was published:
“It seemed rather peculiar that right after The Return of the King was published, this thing comes along to steal my thunder. O-ho! I was rewriting my 47,000th draft of Lord of the Silmarillion Hobbit Rings when a friend sent me this. I do not think it is very entertaining. Just a giant dumpster of cosmology without any narrative. I'm surprised some people consider it a genuine work of fact, even though it seems more like a mythopoeia. Same thing could be said for the Book of Mormon.”
G.R.R. Martin, famous for dying before he could finish A Song of Ice and Fire, cited The Urantia Book as a inspiration for world building.
“What can I say? The Urantia Book has long been held a high place in fantasy, so I wanted to rival it. Very good worldbuilding”
Religion[edit | edit source]
A religion has formed out of the Urantia Book's ideas about the cosmology of the universe.
