A while back I awoke with a thought which I expressed in my notebook in the following strange sentence:
I’m happy to be an Agondonter – one who believes without seeing. i.e. not clairvoyant. I am thankful for sustaining faith and the forgiveness of God – without it I would be a Humpty Dumpty.[1]
The Urantia Book only has one reference to the strange but rather intriguing word ‘Agondonter’ the definition being: …evolutionary will creatures who believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable difficulties even when alone. Rewards of Isolation 50:7.6 (578)
‘Without seeing’ can be a good thing in this isolated world; too many dreams and visions, or all-too-real experiences with angels or extraterrestrials, can make life much more difficult than it needs to be. Mystics sometimes go mad, or even become bad as a result of believing what ‘comes through’ to them or what they ‘have seen’. Acting on such ‘seen’ information as if it were true just because a dream or vision or person who had an ‘experience’ with an off- planet being, an angel, an ancestor or a ‘spirit guide’, could be most misleading, and create all sorts of unnecessary dramas. God knows there are enough in daily life.
I am glad not to have such mystical problems. I’m a spiritual-experience dead-head. And am happy to be so. For me it’s good not to have the complications associated with such ‘spiritual experiences’ or a guru to follow who is felt to be an conduit to God. I think I would become unbearable if I were driven by an experiential knowing derived from someone outside of myself – an ‘authority’ from the spiritual world who confers absolute knowing.
I want to be able to question what I might think as me, myself and I – using a combination of scientific logic, philosophic wisdom and spiritual values as my yardstick for measuring facts, ideas, and ideals that I come across in my life. The section on Mysticism, Ecstasy and Inspiration on the easy-to-remember page 1000 has been enormously helpful to my Agontonterish faith that helps me to be happy little Agondonter.
[1] I researched Humpty Dumpty and found this amongst the many interpretations:
Humpty Dumpty is a meditation on the fleeting nature of power and the risk that comes with any position of authority…Consider that if he had not been alone on his wall, others would have been nearby to reach out and catch him. But balanced at the top, there was no help. Only a desire to push or pull him down so that someone else could enjoy the view … according to one school of thought, artistic intent is less important than the experience of the audience in interpreting the meaning behind any work. (Joseph Reinemann)