Tidings - March 2025

Conferences are generally attended to learn something new or to improve on something old. In my opinion, the most important thing at a Urantia Book Readers’ Conference is not the knowledge, but the people. I have been to quite a few conferences already, and that is why it is nice to see old acquaintances again, to feel how the world really is small and there are truth-seekers in every corner of the world.

On the other hand, you also meet new people; it may even happen that you meet people working in your field. This brings you even closer. It is always interesting to hear stories about how The Urantia Book finds its way to truth-seekers, to find ideas for your life or for organizing your life in accord with the teachings.

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It was truly an unforgettable experience — a meaningful moment that added lasting spiritual value to my life.

I come from Poland. I’m 50 years old, married to a loving wife, and the father of three children. This conference was a true spiritual adventure for me, a gift I gave myself for my 50th birthday. It was my very first time attending such an event, and I embraced it with great enthusiasm and gratitude.

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Dear members of the Urantia family, 

It is with deep gratitude and a great sense of responsibility that I assume the presidency of Urantia Association International, effective April 1. Since January, I have been training with Enrique Traver, the outgoing president. This mandate represents a precious opportunity for me to serve the Urantia community and to work, with the support of our great team, the International Service Board (ISB) and the International Representative Council (IRC), to expand this revelation that enlightens our souls and minds. 

Our mission goes beyond the simple intellectual study of The Urantia Book. My most sincere desire is to inspire everyone to live their teachings to the fullest, integrating them into our daily lives and embodying love and truth in our interactions with our brothers and sisters. It is not only a matter of understanding, but of experiencing, feeling, and manifesting the Father’s will in our lives. 

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June 6-9, 2025 – Paris France

Divine Distributivity, Man as Heir of God
Organized by AFLLU, the French readers’ association of The Urantia Book
europe2025.urantia.fr

Dear friends,

June is fast approaching and the Paris 2025 conference awaits you with joy and fraternal friendship. It is important to register by April 1st to reserve your accommodation.

We invite you to join us in discovering the cosmogony the authors of The Urantia Book offer for our reflection, that was never fully revealed on Urantia before the twentieth century. It originates in Eternity and ends in Infinity, and we, the children of our Universal Father, are invited to participate as heirs.

Saturday morning will be devoted to studying the preparatory phase of events prior to the coming of space-time itself, how the First Cause, the I AM, the Unity of Infinity-Eternity, manages to diversify and produce the foundations of all reality. This 45-minute presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer workshop session to get us thinking about the very nature of reality. 

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Reprinted with permission from Urantia Foundation

With the Paris conference on the horizon it seems appropriate to revisit the very first translation of The Urantia Book, which began in the late 50’s. The bulk of this article is from The Challenges of the First Translation of The Urantia Book, by Georges Michelson-Dupont (trustee and manager of translations). It has been reformatted and includes excerpts from Second In-depth Revision of the French Translation, by Jean Royer.

Mr. Michaelson-Dupont will be speaking at the upcoming Paris Conference. We hope you will be able to attend, with this unique opportunity to meet Georges, one of the pioneers and great supporters of the Urantia Foundation.

A Brief History

Soon after the publication of The Urantia Book in 1955, Mrs. Caroline Brown, a member of the Forum, sent a copy to her friend Jacques Weiss. Mr. Weiss was a brilliant man who graduated from L’École Polytechnique, one of France’s most prestigious universities who had translated other books including Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East, published in French in 1946, and more recently, Esoteric Healing, by Alice Bayley.

Mr. Weiss began translating The Urantia Book in late 1956 or early 1957. Mr. Weiss enumerated some of the many challenges and difficulties all translators experience. Not only must a translator translate ideas and not just words, but also, in the case of The Urantia Book, new concepts must be understood clearly and translated accurately.

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September 11-14, 2025 At The Urantia Foundation in Chicago In a sacred circle of trust with other women, we invite you to explore the dignity of being Daughters of God …

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[This is a new Tidings series that features volunteers in our Association who are serving you–and serving the revelation–all over the world.] 

Tidings: Welcome, Janet Guaderrama, to our new feature where we focus on our valuable volunteers! Please introduce yourself.

Janet:  I grew up in a Catholic family in Toluca, IL, playing guitar at masses and loving CYO classes. I studied Eastern religion before I found The Urantia Book in January of 1975, right out of high school. I was 18 when someone asked me what I thought about the story of Adam and Eve. They then told me about the book’s version and it just clicked. I was ready.

Initially, I studied with the large Bloomington-Normal study group and hosted meetings frequently on the farm where I worked in Secor, IL. I moved to Boulder, CO in 1976 and learned a lot from their large and active Urantia Book community. When organized religion wasn’t working for me, Urantia Book study groups provided spiritual community and communion. A Godsend.

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The Urantia Book Study Group Directory now has 532 listings in 20 languages. It is “a free and open service to readers of The Urantia Book to facilitate their connection with other readers for the purposes of collaborative study and spiritual fraternity, and to study group hosts to publicize their meetings toward this purpose.”

The Study Group Directory is overseen and curated by representatives from Urantia Foundation, and volunteers from Urantia Association International, Urantia Book Fellowship, and a website administrator. Each listing has a description of its operation and contact information. The website also has a global map showing locations, downloadable study aids, and a registration page.

It may seem strange that a pandemic (Covid) caused so many new study groups to come online, but that is the case. A while ago I decided to visit all the online English-speaking groups in the Directory. So far, I have visited almost twenty. I can attend one or more Zoom groups every night. Several groups meet on the same day at the same time, so I usually attend a group for a few months then go to another. It’s such a privilege to have so many choices and I can always return to any group.

Study group touring has been a remarkably rewarding experience. The number of Urantia Book readers I’ve come to know and love has increased with every group I visit. Each group is unique in several ways, in how the host conducts study, in how attendees respond, in how many attendees there are, even in how topics are presented. No two are alike; I visited a study group where only the host and I showed up, whereas others have up to thirty attendees.

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Reprinted From The Arena

We had a lovely conference this year which was held 4 – 7 October at the Edmund Rice Centre in Lower Plenty, Melbourne. The theme was Urantia Stocktake – Past, Present and Future. Readers attended from Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, NSW, Hawaii and New Zealand. The group was cozy and allowed for plenty of informal interaction. Our thanks go to the Melbourn Study Group members who hosted the gathering – Regina Williamson, Prue Scott, Bevan James and Dennis de-Jong.

There was good mix of presentations and workshops this year with plenty of humor, socializing and music. I heard many people express what a highlight these conferences are in that you can feel safe and comfortable talking about Urantia Book teachings and concepts that you just can’t talk about freely with those who are not familiar with the book.

We held a delightful welcoming “meet and greet” happy hour on Friday afternoon where we socialized and got to know new people who attended for the first time. Each morning before breakfast, the “early birds” attended a worship session with a good mix of silence, prayer and readings from the book. Prue was the MC and opened the conference on Friday evening with an ice-breaker activity whereby we were given a little slip of paper with a question on it. We went around the group, and each read out their own question and then answered it. This was fun and stimulated a lot of discussion.

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