Chapter Six
DIMENSIONALITY

The universe is a great ocean, its fluidic presence interspersed by countless crystalline objects, icebergs on and of the sea of existence. Through the universal ocean stream three limitless currents--the physical, mindal, and spirital dimensions, their outpourings and returnings curving toward the distant centrality of Paradise.

One could imagine the universe as an ocean not of space, but of water at near-freezing temperatures, devoid of any other substance. Cities of gleaming ice would house machines of crystallized water energized by flowing liquid water. In just such a way, the invisible continuum of charged space is, in denser form, the enstructurated matter of the planets and the flowing energies of space.

The Oceans of Space

The reaches of infinity are marked with numerous universe oceans. Among these is the vertical, hourglass-shaped reservoir of unpervaded space (123:4). Every ocean, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, has a name--a proper noun . It seems appropriate and useful to designate this primordial body of pure space Spatium Physicus. Another primordial ocean is the mysterious reservoir of space potency located in an unknown place (122:5; 126:4) previous to its union with space. Being force charge (122:5; 139:5), this hidden sea can appropriately be referred to as Fortium Physicus. These two great oceans pour out into a horizontal, disk-shaped basin, their mixture, pervaded space, or charged space , becoming the home sea of humankind (122:8; 123:1,4-5; 124:4; 125:1). This sea, the entire creation of time and space, can appropriately be designated Continuum Physicus.

There are other universe oceans. In the vastnesses of Continuums Mindus and Spiritus rise the gleaming world of mindal awareness and the shining creation of spirital being, their respective realities enspatiated in Spatiums Mindus and Spiritus and enfortiated in Fortiums Mindus and Spiritus . These circling pools of universe reality are also known as fields.

Space and the Dimensions

The URANTIA Book teaches that space potency, or force, slows down through phases of condensation to become energy and substance (123:3; 467:4; 469:1-471:5; 476:7). Substance contains not only charge, but also space (1297:7-8), which is a positive reality (133:10; 1439:5). It is therefore the space-charge mixture of charged space itself--a continuum--that enstructurates to become substance. Each continuum, like the all-encompassing water of the hypothetical aqueous universe, is unique space, energy, and substance.

Dimension signifies a primordial reality within which the things of existence are moulded (9:4; 10:2-5). To a finite mind of time and space, a dimension would thus be an ocean of charged space--a continuum--in all of its phases of condensation. To mortal ascenders, the physical dimension is Continuum Physicus as space, energy, and substance. Similarly, the spirital dimension is Continuum Spiritus and the mindal dimension Continuum Mindus. One can refer to the structurates, or objects, of the physical, mindal , or spirital dimension as physicates, mindates (or concepts), or spiritates, respectively.

One could view the charge and space fields behind the continuums as themselves being higher and purer dimensions. Consciousness approaching the awareness of seven dimensions , teaches The URANTIA Book, conceives of potential space as a near ultimate (1439:5). As one attains transcendental levels of Deity-likeness, one's ideas of time and space increasingly approximate the timeless and spaceless concepts of the Absolutes (1439:7). Surviving mortals ultimately attain identity in a seven-dimensional universe (1439:6).

Nature of the Dimensions

A dimension is an expression of its two primalates--its space field and charge field. Space is a bestowal of, and charge evolves into obedience to, the absolute actual associated with that dimension: the Paradise Source and Center, in the case of physical reality (83:3; 124:6; 329:6). The physical universe, as an expression of the impersonal Paradise Source and Center (101:9), reveals no aspect of inherent personal value. In contrast, Continuum Spiritus, created and upheld by a person--the Eternal Son (76:2; 81:4)--contains personally relevant relationships, laws, reactions, and properties (25:5; 80:3; 140:10; 141:3).

The Infinite Spirit, invested by the Paradise Source and Center with the overcontrol of subabsolute physical reality (101:6-7; 320:2) and by the Eternal Son with the overcontrol of subabsolute spirital reality (265:1-2), is also the absolute source of mind (99:4; 102:8-103:1). Mind can thus associate with, and also interrelate , physical and spirital reality (98:4; 104:6; 136:1; 189:3-4).

Mindal Structurates

Mind can be classified as physical, mindal, or spirital (192:2-6; 195:2-8; 566:2; 1216:7; 1218:1-7). Though purely mindal realities, these phases of mind can conveniently be viewed as mindal subdimensions: Continuum Physicum Mindus , Continuum Mindum Mindus, and Continuum Spiritum Mindus, respectively, with corresponding space and charge fields. Mindates associated with physical reality are physiccepts, or physical concepts, of physical mind, while those associated with spirital reality are spirital concepts, or spiritcepts, constituting spirital mind.

Nascent, or cosmic, physic (physical reality), tells The URANTIA Book, is responsive to mind and nascent mind responds to spirit (102:5; 484:4). As bits of mineral, snipped and arranged to a specific pattern as antenna, capacitor, and resistor, can capture invisible, speeding radio waves, amplifying and transforming them into compelling words, inspiring music, or even remotely controlled movement, so, too, the brain, a master sculpture in tiny, living cells of mindal endowment (403:4; 480:6; 739:1-2), transforms and enstructurates the basic activations of mind (738:3; 1222:5) into complex thought, awareness, and action .

Living Mind

Primitive animal organisms, living in lilliputian landscapes, possess microscopic mind endowments (403:4; 480:6; 739:1-2). Each animal cell has a physical brain, tiny gateway to the mindal universe. Physical cell and associated mindal component--physicate and corresponding physiccept --they embrace across a dimensional boundary, two parts of one multidimensional object, a transate.

Life springs only from preexistent life (403:8). Mind springs only from preexistent mind (403:8). Division of a preexistent physical cell into two cells would seem to be accompanied by division of its associated preexistent mindal cell and pairing together of respective offspring across the dimensional interregnum. This mindal reproduction , with associated genetic mindal inheritance, could be responsible for the beliefs of some persons that they possess memories from previous lives. The URANTIA Book tells that personality does not return to a physical existence after physical death (528:3-4; 1811:6).

Mind is organized consciousness (140:8). The first aggregating level of physical cells is living tissue, perhaps counterparted in Continuum Physicum Mindus by mindal cells joined as tissue-level mind. In an overateward direction, organs may be associated with organ-level mindates. More overateward mindal enstructuration produces individual creature consciousness and, further overateward, perhaps group mind .

Spanning the Dimensions

Mindal awareness encounters only mindal realities, not physical or spirital (1216:5-7). Physical light never enters the brain. Instead, it is encoded by the visual system of the eye into electrical impulses, which then stimulate physicate patterns in the physical brain . These living physical patterns stir corresponding physiccept patterns in the dimension of mind. Gazing out upon the world, one might contemplate with awe the spreading horizon as it encircles the world or marvel in wonder at the space-flung sky enwrapping all things; but what one actually views are mindate counterparts of these physical realities , models built of elementary mindal cells enstructurated as overate physiccepts in one's inner world of mind .

Creatures of purely physical mind act only in response to the awareness of physiccepts. In contrast, choice is purely spirital in creatures of the spirital world. Human life is different from both of these. The indwelling spirit associates with the human's spirital mind, causing it to develop mindal spiritcepts, while the physical mind is involved with the physical aspects of life. It is in the physical mind that the power of choice has developed (1219:2).

Higher motivations are spirital, realitized as spiritcepts--but life's situations are encountered through physical sensors and perceived as corresponding physiccepts. In the mindal interior is the mindal mind, also known as the mid mind, or soul (1218:7). Mindal structurates there are mindcepts, also known as soulates, which interrelate motivating spiritcepts of spirital mind and responding physiccepts of physical mind (1205:3-5; 1218:6; 1219:2). Thus the soul sorts and coordinates values, establishes attitudinal reactions (102:6; 1219:2; 1227:5), and brings about increasing spirit influence over the mind.

Dimensional Transition

The soul is described in The URANTIA Book as character (1236:4,6), also a formula of identity (1230:4) and a mind matrix (533:2). The existence of physical or spirital mind can be inferred by physical or spirital testing. The soul, however, a Continuum Mindus mindcept, cannot, teaches The URANTIA Book, be discovered by exclusively physical or spirital testing (1478:7). Growth of the soul, development of spiritual character , comes from the conscious attempt to follow the indwelling spirit (1205:3-5; 1218:8-9; 1749:3). Survival comes as personality relocates its seat of identity from the physical mind to the soul (26:1; 1219:2; 1229:7; 1232:5-1233:1).

Mind is consciousness (140:8)--but not memory , as can be seen by the fact that memories can be lost through damage to the physical brain. The brain is, among other things, a physical notebook inscribed with facts by physical mind for later use. At physical death, physical memories are lost with the physical brain (1235:4). After resurrection, one can hear or read about one's previous physical experiences (1236:7). The soul, offspring of the physical and spirital minds, contains patterns, associated with the memories of these mind phases, which infuse the reacquired facts with the power of original memory (451:1-4; 1237:1). Spiritally significant memories are permanent possessions of one's spirit indweller and are available to one again after resurrection (533:2; 1235:4; 1236:6-7).

Morontia Reality

The post-resurrection form is of morontia substance , a material which, though condensed from physical energy, incorporates internal motions of modified frequency and is invisible to the human eye (541:6-542:1; 2027:1; 2029:3; 2041:2). Morontia substance, which has an element corresponding to each physical element (541:6), can be coordinated with spirital reality to create a new, transate reality of the same name: morontia substance (542:3; 543:9).

Morontia, teaches The URANTIA Book, refers to a vast range of reality between the physical and spirital (9:3), the word between being a functional designation (544:6). The soul, though a mindal reality of the mid mind, is designated morontia (8:10; 1218:7-8), because it intervenes functionally between physic and spirit (1205:5). The URANTIA Book tells that all substance and all forms of life on the progressive morontia worlds, including plant and animal life, are identical from sphere to sphere but increasingly synchronized, in a functional manner, with spirit (543:9-10; 544:6). The transate morontia form, subject to overcontrol by a spirital entity (542:3), cannot support consciousness without the presence of the indwelling spirit (542:4; 1236:6).

Morontia beings have vision encompassing the physical and morontial phases of the physical dimension (545:2). They synthesize and correlate their dual-phase observations through the technique of morontia mota (554:1-2), successor to the single-phase philosophy of the physical life. Perception of a whole new realm between the physical and spirital worlds greatly expands one's ideas of time and space (1439:7).

The local universe morontia worlds, progressively attuned to decreased physical and increased spirital overcontrol (543:9-10; 544:5-6), are a ladder from physicality to spiritality (541:4-5; 542:2; 1219:3). The goal is the Heavenly Father in all of his phases of Deity manifestation; the destination is Paradise--and beyond Paradise, the Universe Absolute; the way is Christ Michael --and beyond Christ Michael, the Supreme; the key is faith, sincerity, and a desire to know and serve God.