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 cosy 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 humour, socialising 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.
Each morning before breakfast, the “early birds” attended a worship session organised by Prue Scott. It included lighting a ‘candle’ to signify attendance and presence. This was followed by five minutes of quiet music leading to silence, then five minutes of absolute silence, five minutes of quiet music to bring us back to the present, then reading from The Urantia Book.
Prue was the MC and opened the conference on Friday evening. There was a little pack waiting for each of us that contained goodies such as note paper, pen, led-light candle, a few things relating to later workshops, and a chocolate! As an ice-breaker activity we had all been 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.
On Saturday, the first presentation was given by Bevan James on the Lucifer Rebellion. He reminded us about the Lucifer Manifesto and all the social repercussions that we can still see in our society today. Next came a presentation by Dennis de-Jong on Jesus in the Book of Enoch, Prophesy and Eden Update. He pointed out the many places in the Book of Enoch that prophesised much that came to light in Jesus’ bestowal, including Jesus’ coining of the term “Son of Man”.
In addition, Dennis shared many slides and much information on the underwater project that he’s been interested in for many years. It’s attempting to find evidence of the sunken Garden of Eden in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where The Urantia Book describes it to be.
After lunch we were treated to a beautiful film on the Architectural Spheres that was compiled by Gary Tonge.
Next Prue lead a fun workshop on Populating the Cosmos. She had created a lovely schematic chart of Nebadon with all its constellations, mansion worlds and planets. We all helped ourselves to many little bits of paper that had the names of personalities on them. We then had to decide where each personality hailed from and place onto the chart in the section of the local universe where we thought that personality hailed from. It generated a lot of fun and interaction as people discovered how much they knew, or didn’t know, about where various beings sprang from.
After afternoon tea we were treated to two presentations in a row by expert scientists. Firstly, Graeme Chapman gave us a very interesting presentation on Some Principles of Geology for Readers of Part Three. Graeme is a long-time geologist who is fascinated by the geology in The Urantia Book and can give us well-informed information and comparisons in the book to modern day science.
The second one was given by our amazing resident astrophysicist, Nigel Nunn who presented on Personal, Scientific and Philosophical Discoveries and Interpretations. As usual, Nigel was able to show us incredible slides and explain some very complex information about the cosmos and philosophy in layman’s language that we could understand.
After dinner we had an informal fun night. The Melbourne crew entertained us with an hilarious skit of an encounter between Lucifer and Jesus complete with celestials. We also had an “open mic” night where anyone could get up and perform. We had a few guitars there, so we heard from singers, poets, and a couple of individual skits.
Sunday began with a presentation by Regina Williamson on Michael, his home and life—advice for a better life on Urantia. She stressed the importance of Paper 21, The Paradise Creator Sons which she said “…doesn’t have one sentence that isn’t important”. That paper covers so much that lets you know exactly who Michael of Nebadon is and the significance of his seventh bestowal as Jesus of Nazareth.
After morning tea Prue conducted an exercise for us on Prayer Composition and Dispatch. We had some quiet personal prayer time after which we all wrote a private letter to the being that we wanted to send the prayer to, whether it be the Father, Michael, Mother Spirit, guardian angel etc. Once we wrote our prayer on something close to our hearts, we slipped it onto an envelope and addressed it to the being or deity we were addressing. The idea was for no one else to see what we’d written; Prue collected them up and “dispatched” them as a figurative way of “sending them up on high” by burning them in a symbolically ceremonial fire. After that we held a session called Hit Us with Your Best Shots which was in the form of a kind of roundtable “forum” where anyone could ask questions, and the group would provide and discuss the answers.
After lunch Kathleen Swadling presented on Urantia Organisations – Past, Present and Future. She had been asked to do this as many people were confused and uncertain about the organisations that make up the Urantia movement. She took us through the history of the main organisations of today, right from before the book was published to present day, with speculation on the future.
After that Phillip Marriott, who is the Chair of the Study Group Committee on the International Service Board of Urantia Association, did a presentation on the New Directions of Study followed by a break-out session where we could discuss New Format for Study Sessions. This got everyone thinking and talking about how we can improve study groups and other methods of study that may attract new attendees.
The afternoon allowed a couple of hours of free time so we could go for walks or simply wonder around the garden and explore a large labyrinth. ANZURA’s AGM for members was held just before dinner. Elections were held and Rita Schaad and Merindi Belarski were re-elected as President and Secretary respectively. The Board now still consists of:
President: Rita Schaad
Vice President: Pree McGee
Secretary: Merindi Belaski
Treasurer: Robert Coenraads
NZ Representative: Marion Steward
Sunday night’s dinner was spectacular. The dining room was a beautiful room with a giant spiral staircase – the ambience was lovely. The tables were rearranged to become one long continuous table complete with white tablecloths, flowers and candles. It was a real High Tea, and the atmosphere was buzzing with the sound of everyone happily socialising. Once dinner was over someone broke out the guitars again and the open mic session from the night before continued. The whole evening was a great grand finale of the conference.
We closed the conference on Monday morning where everyone was free to reflect, give feedback, and discuss the weekend by sharing personal highlights. A big thank you to the Melbourne crew for planning and hosting a very enjoyable weekend, and a special thanks and acknowledgment to Prue for masterminding much of the worship sessions, workshops and high tea evening.