Latest / Urantia Radio / Byron Belitsos - Who Is Our Target Audience?

Transcript

Byron Belitsos - Who Is Our Target Audience? · Urantia Radio

0:14
So we are back with Byron Belitsos.
0:16
He has not been on in a little bit of time, but we've caught up
0:19
to him and he is of course the author of a couple of wonderful
0:22
books. I will recommend to you now your
0:24
Evolving Soul, the Cosmic Spirituality of the Urantia
0:27
Revelation and also his book, The Adventures of Being Human,
0:32
the lessons on soulful living from the heart of the Urantia
0:35
Revelation to among many. And I continue to read his
0:38
Substax. And I would encourage you also
0:40
the union of souls. And you've been focusing in on
0:43
the infrastructure of the Urantia movement.
0:46
And it's something that's been on my mind for many, many years.
0:50
And I'm constantly frustrated, as many book readers are, that
0:53
we're not farther along with people knowing about the
0:56
revelation. And it's, it's a point of
0:59
consternation really, because it's like having this incredible
1:02
thing not dazzling to anybody but you.
1:05
And so starting off with your Revelation infrastructure, what,
1:09
where do you see the whatever is defined as the Urantia movement?
1:13
Where do you see that movement right now?
1:16
Yeah, I think I agree, of course that things are Yeah, just about
1:20
everybody's disappointed and it's in a kind of a gridlock
1:26
because I think it's a natural kind of thing that ever.
1:33
We all disagree about what to do.
1:37
And so that gets you to governance and governance is
1:41
supposed to be how you work out the disagreements and they
1:45
governance is fragmented, obviously.
1:47
And so you don't have much agreement.
1:50
So you don't really know what your plan is.
1:54
You don't have a unified plan. You have some some things that
2:03
are really decent. So I think it's in AI wouldn't
2:09
say it's in decline. I would say it's stagnant in
2:14
answer to your question, there are breakthroughs here and
2:18
there, little bits, but study groups still going, they're not,
2:23
you know, they're aging, obviously.
2:28
So I, I would say if this was my business, I'd be concerned like
2:34
if I was running it, I'd probably resign and hire
2:40
somebody else. No, I actually mean it would be
2:42
somebody who is especially good at, at outreach and marketing
2:48
and most Eagle is somebody good at that.
2:52
And I think he did his piece and he did a lot, he did a lot of
2:58
good. And but now we need somebody
3:01
else who's got that kind of outbreach orientation that
3:07
could, could lead the movement in a in a much more aggressive
3:14
outward orientation as opposed to inward.
3:18
You know, just we just talk to each other.
3:20
We don't really talk to the outside world.
3:22
I I don't think that the world really thinks that it needs a
3:25
revelation. Maybe that's part of the
3:27
problem. How do we make the point that
3:29
the ranch book has something so unique and that could actually
3:33
be helpful to the rest of the world?
3:35
I think the way to do it is to not think in terms of the world
3:38
as such, but to think of a segments, a target audiences,
3:45
right? So your, your audience is not
3:46
the world. And that's, that's unwise.
3:51
And for any, any, any business, including the Father's business,
3:57
you have, when you're starting out as something, you have a
4:01
target audience in mind. It's different than the apostles
4:09
and Jesus because that was a salvation mission for the whole
4:13
world. But even they focus, you know,
4:17
on the ordinary people. They didn't like just walk into
4:21
the into the synagogue. They did, but they focused on
4:25
regular people who were looking for salvation.
4:27
So today we who are these people?
4:30
That's the question. I mean, I have some ideas, but
4:34
it's clearly not people who are fundamentalist Christians,
4:38
clearly not committed Muslims. It's clearly not totally secular
4:44
people. So, all right, you don't go
4:46
through a process of elimination.
4:47
What does that leave you with? You know, you just got to figure
4:51
this like anything else. I mean, you figure out who your
4:55
target is and then that's called efficient marketing, that you
5:04
don't market to the whole world. You just don't do it.
5:07
It's silly. That's my view.
5:11
I was reading paper 100 not long ago and it gives a lot of
5:15
instruction as to what what the problem is with religion in
5:18
today. And they'll they specifically
5:21
address rather prophetically that the the ship has sailed.
5:26
We're not going to go backwards when it would become too
5:29
interconnected. Society is way more complex than
5:32
it ever has been. And yet the revelators make it
5:35
very clear that without, without some kind of faith or religion,
5:40
people aren't going to be motivated.
5:43
I forget the exact words, but it is essentially saying without
5:46
religion, all of your efforts will eventually fail.
5:50
But religion has to be redefined.
5:52
So the Urantia book, all the Urantia book does is it It lifts
5:57
the curtain. But what would you say that the
5:59
Oranga book in in the way that it brings symmetry to science,
6:03
philosophy and faith, Do you think that's a valuable
6:06
component to its appeal? Like what?
6:09
How would we even start to create a brand?
6:14
What does the brand mean? It means you know when in
6:20
calling for. That doesn't mean that I know
6:22
what it would be, but it's what I'm simply doing in calling for
6:27
branding is to say, let's get some people together who know
6:31
how to brand a product and ask them people who've actually done
6:37
it. And there's, you know, just tons
6:40
of people who are marketing products, all kinds of things
6:45
that were never heard of before. And they make them successful
6:48
because they figure out symbolism and slogans and target
6:53
audience. So this has a target audience.
6:58
It it's So what would be the branding that appeals to that
7:04
type of person? Well, it's a it's probably not
7:07
people who are just high school graduates.
7:10
Probably not. I don't think people who are
7:14
just high school graduates are worried about science and
7:17
religion being harmonized. They just aren't.
7:19
They have other things on their mind, you know.
7:21
So were the people, the one synergy of science, philosophy
7:25
and religion? Who's thinking about that?
7:27
That's about 4% of the of the population.
7:32
How do you find this 4%? There's a gospel that's
7:37
different than the book. The book is not a gospel.
7:40
The book is a is a encyclopedia tone.
7:45
The gospel is really for everybody that is interested in
7:52
Christ. And so so we really have two
7:55
different things going on here. 1 is the ordinary people who are
8:00
interested in Christ. That's an audience, but a
8:03
certain type, a certain type a little bit more educated, a
8:06
little bit more adventurous. That's different than the
8:09
audience for the book. If you want to get people
8:13
reading this huge book, that's not the same audience as the
8:17
people who should be approached with this updated gospel.
8:22
So I actually envisioned two different segments, two
8:26
different efforts that be in relatively separate from one
8:33
another. So those who are interested and
8:36
motivated in their heart to teach the gospel of love, they
8:41
don't have to bring the Rancho book up.
8:45
They they should disclose that for sure.
8:48
But they don't have to talk about these arcane topics with
8:55
people because they're just regular people who are looking
8:58
for, you know, what we used to call salvation, whatever you
9:01
want to call it. So that is a different core of
9:06
evangelists, another group or no, but more intellectual type
9:12
types who want to promote. It's sort of like being an
9:15
encyclopedia salesman, which I, I did once.
9:18
I was going door to door selling Encyclopedia Britannica.
9:23
I wasn't selling the Gospel of Jesus.
9:25
I was selling a big bunch of books.
9:27
And you know, there's a certain way that they sell the, we used
9:29
to sell it. It was we, you know, we would go
9:32
into more educated communities, we'd go door to door, literally,
9:37
and these people would buy it because they were, they had kids
9:41
and they were educated and they wanted to have it in that sort
9:45
of thing. So that's, that's, that's,
9:47
that's selling, that's peddling a book versus selling something,
9:53
a thing of the heart of, of prayer and worship.
9:57
That's so you see what I'm saying?
9:59
I'm saying that they're really should bifurcate that way.
10:02
And and if we don't, then we're really failing in my view.
10:07
I think that what we need are teachers.
10:10
This should be the age where, you know, like when Bill Savile
10:13
would go from city to city and he would speak before a group or
10:17
I think we need more teachers. We need people.
10:20
Do you agree? It's one piece of it is
10:23
teaching. It's a big piece, but there's
10:25
also ministering, healing. There's other subdivisions of
10:33
this outreach. It's just common sense to me.
10:38
And you're if it's religion, you have to have ministers.
10:44
If it's physics, you have teachers, they teach physics,
10:48
they don't minister physics. But here we're talking about
10:54
creating communities. You have to have some leadership
10:57
ability. That's what a minister would be
11:00
doing. You're not just, it's not just
11:02
individuals you're trying to form community.
11:05
Seems to me, I, I, I advocate that very strongly that there be
11:10
face to face community. So a teacher's part of that, but
11:13
it isn't really the leader of a community.
11:16
That's, I call that a minister. And so in that regard, I, I
11:21
don't really agree with the UUI's focus on developing
11:26
teachers. That's their main focus,
11:28
although they're beginning to move toward creating ministers.
11:32
But it it is a, a, a, a, an odd problem in the Urantia movement
11:37
that it seems to feel that ministering is not what we do.
11:45
That's because we're. Afraid of it?
11:47
We don't I, I, I get the sense that essentially Urantia book
11:51
readers, having escaped from the clutches of whatever they were
11:54
involved with before, don't want to turn around and and now
11:58
become a part of another religion.
12:00
That's always something that we've we've worn with a, a, a
12:03
badge of distinction. But at the same time, we have a
12:06
bunch of these beliefs that are are very out of this world.
12:10
Religious. I foresee a day where we will
12:13
have centers, you know, Urantius sinners, you know, like, you
12:17
know, like the Christian Science model where they would just have
12:20
reading rooms. Would that get the job done?
12:22
Would that help facilitate awareness of the book?
12:25
Because that's what really what we're talking about.
12:28
If you are selling a book, yes, but I'm saying we're selling two
12:33
things. We're selling two things.
12:36
One is we're we're selling the idea of an enlightened community
12:41
of people who pray together, worship together, sing together,
12:45
minister to the, you know, to the neighborhood.
12:48
That's different than just having a place where you read a
12:53
book. And, and the way I see it is,
12:57
is, you know, you mentioned that we were, we're oldest badge of
13:01
them. We're not religious.
13:03
That is an error. That's just an error.
13:06
It's, it's a, it's a bias that came from Sadler, in particular,
13:13
William Sadler, senior and junior.
13:16
They were anti clerical for whatever reason.
13:20
I I don't know why, because the UB is not the text is not anti
13:27
anti, it's anti tyranny. Yeah, there's definitely, but
13:33
you know, you don't have to have a, you have a, a Quaker meaning
13:37
that's not tyrannical. You have a religious science
13:40
church that's not tyrannical. Being a Methodist church's
13:44
beautiful place. I I was brought up in a
13:48
wonderful church, which is a Greek Orthodox, very mystical
13:52
musical church. I'm not a refugee from religion
13:56
and a lot of people are not. But this is this weird bias of
13:59
the ranch movement that has we got to shake it.
14:03
It just, it's not thought. It's not thought through very
14:06
well. It's, it's a, it's a, it's
14:08
nothing but a bias in my opinion.
14:11
OK, so on that note too, Byron Politzos in in that particular
14:16
paper 100, it talks about the need for religion to religion is
14:21
at its best when it's a personal experience, When it starts to
14:24
become connected to movements or groups or group activities, it
14:30
secularizes itself and becomes nothing more than a political
14:33
party. So how do we navigate that very
14:36
complicated path so that the Urantia book would be seen as a
14:40
as a refuge for spiritual truth? Because what I'm hearing is
14:43
you're saying maybe we should have the Church of Urantia,
14:46
Maybe we should have churches where people can come and pray
14:49
and have a minister just like the other churches.
14:52
I, I am saying something like that, but, but it's, it's, it's
14:57
an enlightened version of what we had before.
15:00
It's not going to be with a Pope who is, is a tyrant.
15:05
It's going to be something that's been already known in
15:09
Christianity since the 16th century already.
15:15
They already had this rebellion against religion and in the
15:19
Reformation, and the Reformation said, yeah, this is a tyrannical
15:23
church. We're going to just be free of
15:26
that and we're going to create congregations without a
15:30
hierarchy. And they fanned out throughout
15:33
Europe. Then they came over to the
15:35
United States, you know, and the Quakers settled Pennsylvania.
15:41
Quakers were non hierarchical. We have a tradition of 400 years
15:46
of non of really true religion of the sort the ranch book talks
15:50
about. But it's more than that because
15:53
let people freely choose and let the we're not going to have one
15:59
your rancher church. That would be silly and it's
16:00
impossible. You would have a multiple,
16:04
multitude of all kinds of experiments and we can call them
16:08
churches. If you don't like that word
16:10
because you had a terrible experience as a Catholic, then
16:14
use a different word. Use some other word.
16:16
So big, big deal. I mean, you know, we, I don't
16:21
know why people are so hung up on this thing that they think
16:26
that they, if they start a group, that the group is going
16:29
to begin to oppress itself. I don't get it.
16:34
What am I missing? You know, years ago I got into a
16:37
conversation with a Urantia book person at the foundation and I
16:42
said, why don't we have billboards up in every city with
16:45
quotes like we do with the thought of the day.
16:47
And it the, the word urantia has not been, in my limited
16:54
experience with marketing, you have to have a, a synapse
16:58
created for the word urantia in the human brain.
17:01
Otherwise it has no meaning to the person hearing it because
17:05
there's no reference of it. It's not in our vernacular.
17:07
So I can see driving around on the I-10 in LA and seeing a
17:11
billboard that has this wonderful quote and then a
17:14
hyphen with a Urantia book and then maybe the paper.
17:18
Unless I really had a huge endowment, 10 million up, I
17:22
wouldn't do things like that because you have to saturate.
17:26
This is a science of marketing. It's just common sense too.
17:30
People have to see it many, many times.
17:33
But you know, they're they're marketing departments in
17:36
business schools. You just go and take a course
17:39
and and this all known. It's all well known.
17:42
How do you brand something you you so we don't have to invent
17:46
anything with the wheel. It's already known.
17:48
You know, it's human psychology, it's social psychology.
17:52
So you but you don't do mass marketing like that at first.
17:58
First you have to hit the target audience.
18:01
That's the best. Use your money wisely.
18:04
When you go big like Pepsi Cola, yeah, then you, then you have
18:08
billboards. Then you, then you're on the
18:11
Super Bowl. If you're here, if you want to
18:12
be in a Super Bowl, $20 million. We don't have 20, but we.
18:17
But you build up to that. And so when you first hit the
18:21
more the leadership of society, they begin to donate, right?
18:28
So then you can build up your funds to do these huge outreach.
18:33
But in the meantime, you, everybody who's advanced student
18:39
of consciousness and students, you know, of, of religion of,
18:47
you know, visionary, you know, arts, they should just know what
18:51
this is. Doesn't mean they read it.
18:54
Oh, yeah. Well, that's that kind of weird
18:56
book. It's interesting.
18:57
I have friends who read it. I mean, that's all you got to do
18:59
at first. But I, I, when you get around
19:02
Jim, I'm sure like me, you don't meet anybody who's ever heard of
19:07
it in, in the circles that should have at least heard of
19:10
it. You know, there's a, there's a
19:12
comment in the in the Urantia book where it talks about had
19:15
Jesus's message come along, maybe a little bit sooner, maybe
19:20
the Roman Empire would have survived, maybe with the
19:24
infusion of, of his teachings, it may have rehabilitated what
19:29
was a disintegrating society. And I think they make that point
19:33
in the Urantia book specifically to say you guys need to get your
19:39
act together. We're giving you something
19:41
that's going to save your civilization.
19:43
Ignore it at your own peril. You get that feeling because we
19:47
have a way to attract intelligent people to the gospel
19:56
that is an updated version of the Bible, and then those people
20:01
who are the target audience have not been approached.
20:05
And therefore, ordinary, ordinary folks who are not super
20:09
educated, they're turning to the Bible as they're only, they have
20:15
no other option. You don't have another option
20:18
other than becoming a Muslim or something, or to become a
20:21
secular. So what I'm trying to get across
20:25
over and over is you don't have to hit the whole popular, you
20:29
have to hit the influencers of the population.
20:32
Put that way, who are they? Who who are they?
20:35
Who are the ones that are forming public opinion?
20:39
I don't know exactly, but that's your job.
20:55
You're putting out high quality literature.
20:58
You're talking about something. How has that experience been for
21:01
you? Do you see a lot of interest
21:03
from your subscribers and your readers?
21:05
Are you disappointed or is it at a a steady clip?
21:09
It's, it's only fair right now. I mean, for example, you know
21:13
that by how many likes you get for a particular post and it's,
21:17
it's not very many and by how many comments you get and it's,
21:21
it's not very many, but it's not too bad.
21:23
And it's lively when when people do comment.
21:26
But it's it's typical of, you know, this directed at the
21:29
Rancho MOOC and it's typical of the movement that is not
21:34
fervent. There are individuals that may
21:38
be, but typically it's fairly asleep.
21:42
And so no, it's, you know, this kind of work is, is.
21:47
Is to be fair, they do have the Mustard Seed initiative, which
21:51
is money that's given to to people like you and others maybe
21:56
that are said, hey, if you do you, do you think that there's
21:59
real value in that or is it just maybe not enough?
22:02
I mean anybody could do a a simple GoFundMe page and say,
22:06
look, you send me money and I'll spend that money buying Facebook
22:10
ads and Geo target people who who tend to like spiritual, you
22:15
know, stuff. Problem solved.
22:17
That's the great thing about our our media today.
22:20
Everybody has their own personal ad agency.
22:23
What what is is that good? I mean, you know, you got to ask
22:27
a question, Byron. I think the most important
22:29
question is maybe the reason that the book isn't popular is
22:32
because most people aren't ready for it.
22:37
I, I think that is the view of the, of the certainly of the
22:42
Orangia Foundation. I mean, it's almost explicit
22:46
about that that. And how do we know that?
22:49
Especially because they're sitting on $20 million and
22:54
they're spending about, you know, a tiny percent of that on
22:58
average. You know what I mean?
23:01
I mean that that's what that says is the world isn't ready.
23:05
We're going to hold that money until the world is ready.
23:08
And you know, that's not, that's not irrational, that's rational
23:12
if your assumption is the world's not ready, right?
23:15
So that is what we get. We get a world that doesn't, has
23:20
never heard of this because because they're not, they're not
23:23
taking the risk. But you wouldn't want to take
23:25
the risk unless you really study the more the science of
23:30
marketing. I haven't seen any study like
23:34
that. Maybe they did it privately, I
23:37
don't know. I've never seen any initiative
23:42
to say use a consulting company to come in here and look at this
23:46
and give us some recommendations that that's that's how you run
23:49
businesses. Every business I've run, I've
23:52
used consultants who come from the outside.
23:54
So why doesn't this ended up getting far far afield from your
23:59
question? No, it's exactly where we need
24:01
to go with this, because I think what you're saying is exactly
24:04
what I was alluding to earlier in, in paper 100.
24:08
We have to be willing to be let the light shine on what we're
24:11
doing and then let the market determine, you know, best
24:15
approach. You know, they, there is a
24:18
statement that says will the market bear it?
24:21
There's no guarantees in life when someone's being introduced,
24:24
whether it's an artist or whether it's a performer and
24:27
actor. Ultimately it's the people who
24:30
decide what they want. But I don't know if the people
24:33
have been given that choice with this book because it's still
24:37
primarily obscure. And I don't see any kind of as
24:42
of, for example, today, there's so many ways you could reach
24:45
people who are spiritually minded.
24:47
It wouldn't be hard. You could sponsor a concert.
24:50
You could, you could, you know, look what you know, Santana's
24:54
playing in our town, you know, love to see Carl Santana.
24:57
You know, he's a tarantia book reader.
24:59
Think he'll say something at the show about it?
25:01
No. But Pato Banten will.
25:04
And Pato has done more for the Tarantia movement than anybody I
25:08
could think of. Right.
25:11
Because he, he, he has the boldness to do that.
25:14
And he? But it shouldn't even be bold.
25:18
Right. And that that's why Santana, for
25:20
example, is a bold person. But but I think, you know, we
25:24
know that many celebrities read it and that's more or less
25:27
proven by the work of Michael Macisaac, who I don't know if
25:32
you've interviewed him, but I hope you do.
25:36
He's the definitive expert on a very famous celebrities that
25:45
read the rancher book. Did you know about this work?
25:49
I did, I did hear some, I I didn't name the name, but I,
25:53
yeah, that's he's coming out with.
25:55
OK, so do tell tell me more. All sorts of famous people from
26:00
the 60s, you know, really out of the sort of the Haight Ashbury,
26:06
you know, from Gary Garcia to Santana, who got the book in, in
26:11
the Haight Ashbury and that period, he got it there.
26:15
And a lot of other people did. And it's very clear that Jimi
26:19
Hendrix and very likely Bob Dylan, but these people don't.
26:25
But my point is they're pretty sure that even Bob Dylan has it.
26:29
But what when if Bob Dylan went public about this, it would get
26:32
creamed by who? Because, well, they would just
26:37
say he's going crazy like, you know, they would.
26:39
I mean, not that he would care. I mean, he doesn't have that
26:41
much to lose. He's in his 80s.
26:43
But but he doesn't have enough support.
26:47
There isn't what we what I call air support, right?
26:50
Air support mean, you know, so you, you, you're on the ground
26:54
and you're, you're the first guy.
26:56
Like, Santana came out in a very mild way and said he's reading a
26:59
rancher book, but he could he could stand up at some concert
27:02
and say it like Plato does. And these people don't do it
27:07
because it's not branded. Because again, there's no
27:11
associative memory the that's connected to the word.
27:15
And that's what has to change is the Urantia book, you know,
27:18
based on your, your thesis, your ongoing thesis on Substack, I
27:23
came up with, well, let's come up with five fundamentals.
27:27
How do we define what the Urantia book, what's its
27:29
message? So let's start there.
27:31
What is its message? And then define it very clearly.
27:35
Because in any concept, when you're explaining it to get
27:39
donors or sponsors, whatever, if they don't get what you're
27:43
selling within the 1st 15 seconds, they're not going to
27:46
get it. If it's complicated, it's not
27:49
going to pass muster. And I think that's the issues we
27:51
tend to and every person's attempt that when they write
27:55
about the book, we all do the same thing.
27:57
We all default to, let's explain the book.
28:00
It's got four parts. It's 2000 pages, it's 700 pages
28:04
of Jesus and the first part talk.
28:06
And then we go down this litany and by the time you're finished,
28:10
it's like, I don't want to get involved in that.
28:12
That's too heavy. So we have to define the
28:15
message. What's the message?
28:17
We're not alone. How about that?
28:21
Something like that, that that so, so let me maybe break this
28:25
down in a new way that I haven't thought of that I want to maybe
28:27
approach with you and see what you think.
28:29
Jim, there there was since I was saying earlier, there's two,
28:35
it's two prong. One is, you know, 1 is to the to
28:40
the ordinary person. It's an update to the gospel.
28:43
That's it. And and that should that effort
28:46
should be pluralistic. In other words, let's let let's
28:50
allow people to go out and teach it in different ways.
28:55
The gospel, OK, let there be ministers, prophets, teachers,
29:02
let them have their own interpretation and go out there
29:05
and let's fund them to do that. But there's no slogan that's
29:09
that we hold to. However, there be another group
29:13
of people who are bringing the ranch book as a book to the
29:18
world, and there it should be centralized.
29:21
That should be branded by one organization, not 3
29:26
organizations. Right now we have 3, right?
29:29
So if you unite this thing branded and just get the best
29:33
people and agree on a slogan like We Are Not Alone, that'd be
29:37
a pretty cool slogan. Put that out all over the place
29:41
to the target, not ever, not on the highways yet, but to the
29:45
target audience to identify that, spend time, spend money,
29:49
figure out who they are, do test marketing, do beta tests.
29:53
Then you begin to do it. You roll it out.
29:57
That, that is, that has to be a unified effort.
30:00
I think it, it didn't. It's just so, so you see,
30:03
there's, there's two different things going on in my view.
30:07
And, and, and that's, that's like how, you know, as a
30:10
businessman, you know how I think, I mean, I got a limited
30:13
amount of money to, to, you know, books that I published,
30:17
they got 10,000 dollar, 20,000 at the most budget for a book.
30:22
I can't sell it to the whole world except to sell it.
30:26
People are used to that topic and if I don't do that, I fail
30:32
and that book goes nowhere. I've seen it many a time.
30:36
You know, one thing that you've done, and I like the Rodin
30:39
Institute, because the model of the Rodin Institute for those
30:42
who are familiar with Rodin is, is he would bring all the
30:46
religious smart people together and then they would all discuss
30:49
openly. Because I, I think if I'm not
30:52
mistaken, Rodin was, was smart enough to understand that you're
30:56
never going to have unity of belief or uniformity of belief,
31:00
but rather unity of believing in the one God.
31:04
And that was essential. Everybody had to lay down their
31:08
lesser gods and we all have to agree that there's one God.
31:12
Is that accurate about Rodin? That was the one thing he had a
31:15
caveat. Really.
31:18
He was monotheistic, if that's what you mean.
31:21
In other words, monotheism had to be sort of the at least one
31:25
common point of agreement. Sure, OK.
31:29
So assuming that, why wouldn't we sponsor, say, public
31:34
discourses where you could bring people a different face together
31:37
and have them debate, you know, Islam, for example, could debate
31:41
with Christianity? Or would that be something that
31:44
maybe the Urantia Foundation or some organization?
31:48
So the Urantia book or the organization which attaches
31:51
itself to Urantia would then sponsor these kinds of public
31:55
events. And again, associating the
31:57
Urantia Book with spirituality and whatever we want to
32:02
associate it with it. I'm just again thinking out
32:05
loud, Byron, because if we don't do something, if this thing is
32:09
going to just, it's going to go down the rabbit hole and it'll
32:12
sit there for 100 years until somebody discovers it in another
32:16
age. So I'm worried about that, Yeah,
32:20
we're all worried about it. And, and, and, and it with,
32:23
with, with there's enough people worried about it that it's,
32:26
we're going to get this thing fixed if we take a little bit of
32:29
time. But it, it's got a chicken and
32:32
egg problem because if you bring people together to do some, some
32:36
stuff, there's no money to fund it.
32:38
I mean a little bit. You go to Mustard Seed and get
32:42
3000. Who is in charge of that?
32:46
I mean, is there an organization that would, would be, you know,
32:51
tasked with just raising money for the Urantia movement?
32:55
Do we have a other outside of the foundation?
32:57
Everybody? Does the fellowship have a like
33:00
a fundraising? They must, right?
33:02
Everybody has, they must not everybody's volunteering all
33:05
their whole time, are they? I'm out.
33:08
I'm asking you because I know you're much more connected than
33:11
the average person. You know, I mean, they, they,
33:15
they have fundraising operation at the fellowship, but it's very
33:21
limited. They don't have like, you know,
33:23
when most company, most nonprofits have a full time
33:27
person called the development manager.
33:30
They, they raise money and then they have adjacent to that they
33:34
have a marketing guy or woman and that just to that they have
33:39
an advertising person, right. There's three different ways
33:42
things you need to be doing. You need to have a marketing
33:45
department with experts in these areas, branding, advertising,
33:50
retailing, you know what I mean? These are divisions of marketing
33:54
that even a restaurant has on practically.
33:57
And so you, you, you should I run an ad or should I, I don't
34:02
know, put on an event in my restaurant?
34:04
I mean, that's what you got to think about if you're going to
34:06
have any, any hope. And so they they have, they
34:10
don't really have that. I mean, but the, but the
34:12
foundation definitely has a fundraise, fundraisers that's
34:17
basically MO and guard, but they're not professional.
34:21
They're good at it, but they're not professional development.
34:26
They're also not objective. They can't be objective because
34:28
it's their baby, you know, and that's the kind of you when
34:32
you're, you're so heavily involved, sometimes you need
34:34
that outside perspective to get a, a fresh point of view or
34:38
approach. If you're too close, sometimes
34:41
that could, well, we don't want to do this.
34:43
We don't want to do that. We might upset our current donor
34:47
base, you know, whatever it is. But I think you're right.
34:50
I mean, some of the stuff that people who are listening, I
34:54
wanted to have you on because I, there's a lot of people, there's
34:57
3 to 4000 people a month listening to this podcast.
35:01
I don't know where they're at, but they're there.
35:03
And I'm trying to fuel that thought, you know, what do we as
35:07
a community do to push this boulder up the hill?
35:12
I have a question here. I, I wrote these down for you,
35:17
Byron, What do you think of the study group model?
35:23
That seems to be something that's sort of evolved
35:26
organically. It's, it's sustained itself,
35:29
it's growing. Do you think that that may be
35:32
maybe that in itself will organically continue?
35:37
It seems like a pretty easy process because every I mean, do
35:42
you like study groups as a as a way of promoting their rancher
35:45
book? What's your thoughts on study
35:47
groups? Well, that was a good idea in
35:49
the 70s, eighties, 90s, but it is today.
35:56
I think it's secondary because it is a intellectual activity.
36:05
It is not a prayerful activity. It is not a bunch of people
36:08
singing wonderful hymns. It isn't a place you can bring
36:12
your children. It isn't a place you can bring
36:15
the elders. It isn't a place where you can
36:17
hold a marriage or a baptism. It's just a intellectual thing
36:22
that is not going to like, you know, enlighten the planet.
36:26
Just having a reading a book isn't going to do so.
36:29
I think it was a good way to disseminate in the beginning,
36:32
but it was it was supposed to, it should be the the main thing
36:37
should be communities. And I don't mean Society of the
36:41
Urantia societies are nothing but, you know, leaders from
36:45
study groups. It should be ministry
36:48
communities. I know that sounds like
36:51
religion, but you know, real people need healing, they need
36:57
teachers, they need preachers, they need sermons.
37:00
I mean, I, I, you and I, we've been through a lot and I don't
37:04
know about you, but I like hearing a sermon.
37:07
I do too. Yeah.
37:09
I find myself listening. I was listening to one on
37:13
SiriusXM, and I caught myself listening to Billy Graham from
37:15
1968 or something. You know, I was like, wow, I
37:19
miss this. This is inspiring, you're right.
37:22
Isn't that great? Yeah.
37:23
I mean, when did you, whenever did you get a sermon from a
37:26
urantia? Anything.
37:28
Nothing. It's like one guy doing it right
37:33
now. It's it's Marvin Garwin.
37:35
Oh, is that right, Marvin Garwin?
37:37
Yeah, he's got yeah. Homecoming, he calls it.
37:40
It's a kind of a quasi part of the fellowship.
37:43
And Marvin every Sunday holds a kind of online church.
37:50
It is called a church and everybody should know about it
37:55
because it's a nice thing. These he's, he gives a short
37:59
sermon and then they have 10 minutes of silent prayer and you
38:04
have, you know, 20-30 forty people online and it's really
38:08
cool. And, and then they have a
38:09
discussion time and that, but he gives a pretty good sermon.
38:14
And this is not, he's not sermonizing about the whole
38:18
Urantia book. He's it's part 4 based, right?
38:22
So he's, he's doing what I what I'm advocating.
38:24
He's there should be people doing ministry, Burmans group
38:30
worship and the the study groups are secondary to that.
38:35
And they tend to be dominated by a certain kind of middle-aged
38:39
male white. Now watch out here.
38:46
It's true. Hey listen, if there was a nice
38:49
sounding females teacher teaching the Urantia book, I'd
38:53
probably listen to it, yeah. That'd be better, but.
38:58
But. Yeah, we, we don't, we don't
39:00
have sermons, right. So that's part of this, this, I
39:04
think unfounded bias against religion, like group process of
39:11
religion and we have to just do it.
39:14
It's just individual. That is an American bias.
39:20
The rest of the world other than Europe, people meet together in
39:25
worship. I don't care if you're Muslim,
39:28
Hindu, that's that's just natural.
39:33
I even mentioned, go ahead. I mean to step on you there.
39:37
No, I made the point. You, you, you attended seminary
39:41
not long ago and, and you completed the program.
39:45
Forgive my ignorance on it, but I know that you have to study
39:47
the Bible. Did you give much studying to
39:52
Revelation, particularly because the Urantia book does mention
39:56
John's Revelation And so there's there's a bit of intrigue in
39:59
that. That brief mention what what's
40:02
your take on Revelation and how curious are you about some of
40:06
the things that it that it revealed?
40:09
And then I have a follow up question to that.
40:12
So you mean the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation?
40:14
Yeah. Yeah.
40:16
I think it's pretty, pretty neat.
40:18
I mean, it's archaic. It's, it's, it's, you know, the
40:22
symbolism is out of date and it's not really taught in
40:26
seminaries, you know? It's not.
40:29
No, unless it's just some fundamentalist seminaries would
40:34
teach it because they're millennialist, you know, and
40:39
they, you know, they do read it for that reason that they're
40:42
apocalyptical in their view, which is, you know, the end of
40:44
the world's coming and the prophecy by John in the Book of
40:48
Revelation. But no, it's not it's it's a
40:51
mess because it's very hard to interpret and by the.
40:56
Thing it's so full of symbolism. Yeah.
41:00
And my follow up question is if you had studied that particular
41:03
paper, there's a passage in in 10 Revelations 10 where John is
41:09
is given witness to a high authority, not necessarily an
41:14
Angel, but someone high in authority.
41:16
It sounds to me like it might be Melchizedek.
41:20
It's in fact it, it sounds to me as I was reading it, it sounds
41:25
like that part of Revelations 10 is talking about the appearance
41:30
of a magisterial son perhaps and a hands John a book and it's
41:36
referred to in Revelations 10 as a little book.
41:39
It's the one that makes your mouth sweet but your stomach
41:43
bitter. It's a common kind of I've seen
41:45
it commonly used. Do you think that that any
41:48
possibility that what John saw was the Urantia book?
41:53
Because in that same quote it the the higher authority says
41:57
don't don't mention what we just told you, but they do mention
42:01
the book. They call it the little book and
42:03
they refer to it twice. I just wondered if that.
42:06
Were I'm going to have to look that.
42:08
Up. Look that up.
42:09
Never really no, I've never really noted that it's you know,
42:13
that's that's pretty, pretty interesting that you spotted
42:16
that item and maybe it was a prophecy of future.
42:21
I mean, there's, there's other things that, you know, there's a
42:25
new and greater revelation, you know, that's in Mormonism.
42:28
Yeah. Where is that?
42:29
I've been looking for that quote for a long time.
42:31
I found it that in fact, the one of the heads of the elders had
42:36
mentioned the Urantia book, and he was quickly escorted out of
42:40
the. You know, this was years ago,
42:42
back in the 70s. There was a famous elder who had
42:45
been trying to tell the people and in Utah, hey, this Urantia
42:49
book thing seems to be kind of interesting.
42:53
And he was, whatever they call it, delisted or something.
42:57
They got him out of there fast. So there I, I often wondered if
43:01
the religious authorities must know about the Urantia book.
43:04
The Pope's all of the they must know about it, but they're not
43:08
saying anything about it. That's that's.
43:10
What's interesting to me, that's what's interesting.
43:13
It's the same with those celebrities I mentioned earlier,
43:16
right? You know, and that they know
43:18
about it because the branding, it should be not be done.
43:24
You shouldn't expect the Pope who knows about, you know, the
43:27
least. Francis almost certainly knew
43:29
about it. You shouldn't expect him to have
43:32
to be the guy to say, oh, I know you haven't heard of this.
43:35
I'm going to tell you all about no, It should already be well
43:38
established among influencers and leaders.
43:41
Then Bob Dylan could come out and stay.
43:45
But you don't expect Bob Dylan to give a tutorial on what the
43:48
ranch book is, right? You, you, we should do that.
43:53
We should have done that, and we did not do that.
43:57
So, you know, it's remedial. All right, we haven't done it,
44:00
so let's do it. You got $20 million sitting
44:03
there. Might be a pretty good use.
44:04
So I always spend at least at least a million on a branding
44:10
campaign. If I had 20 million, I would
44:13
spend a million. I'd probably more than that.
44:16
So you think they're done with the translations?
44:18
And I mean, the book now is everywhere.
44:21
How much that was the original purpose of the foundation was to
44:24
the you're in charge of distribution and dissemination
44:28
and translations and that's all you're supposed to do.
44:31
Do you do you buy that, that that was their job?
44:34
Have they outlived their utility?
44:37
They're usefulness. No, I, I, no, I don't agree.
44:39
No, there, there originally was mandated to do more than that,
44:43
but that that was just part of the mandate dissemination
44:47
building of thousands of study groups.
44:49
There was other parts. But in, in, in regard to your
44:52
question, you know, the ranch book, the ranch foundation was
44:56
supposed to translations, but they don't.
44:59
That's another one of my sort of complaints, that they don't do
45:02
it the way anyone else in the world does translations.
45:07
How do they do it? It's different.
45:08
They, well, they find your rancher book readers and have
45:11
them do it right. That's not how you do.
45:14
That's not how anybody does a translation.
45:18
I'm talking about professionals. Yeah, OK.
45:20
I see what you mean. I ran a professional publishing
45:23
company, a little one, but it did a lot of books and many of
45:27
them were translated. I didn't.
45:30
I didn't go out and find somebody in Turkey and and say
45:36
find somebody, read the book, my book and well, this the Robert
45:40
Sarmast book on no, you, you hire, you find a publisher in
45:45
Turkey. That's what I did.
45:47
I have an agent. We found a publisher that
45:49
publishes stuff like this and they paid for it and they
45:54
published it. But the Rancho Foundation
45:57
doesn't really do that. It doesn't find a local
46:00
publisher, it finds local readers who are not qualified,
46:06
which is why they have some real difficulties with this and that.
46:12
That's another story for another time, because that's a big more
46:17
more. But anyway, so yeah, they,
46:19
they've done a lot, they've got a lot of translations.
46:22
They're good translations by all accounts of the main languages.
46:26
So in a way they're done with that and they can move on and do
46:30
other things that, you know, they're beginning to do.
46:34
I mean, you know, give them some credit.
46:35
I mean, they're beginning to do, they do the scientific
46:38
symposium. That's a really cool, that's
46:39
really great. You know, and they're doing the
46:42
mustard seed, which is, you know, like 2% of the total
46:45
budget is being, you know, you, you, you given out as grants.
46:49
Little, tiny, little tiny thing, but it's, they weren't doing it
46:53
five years ago. So that there's progress, but
46:56
it's very, it's very slow. Yeah, that's very slow.
47:00
All right. Yeah, go ahead, answer the
47:02
question because that's important.
47:05
Yeah, we stated it again. Oh, now you're going to put me
47:08
on the spot. No, I just just the original
47:11
question was the study groups. Has has the foundation outlived
47:15
its usefulness or, or, but I think you've answered it.
47:18
They haven't, but they have to continue on with their their,
47:21
their other mission, which is the training of teachers and
47:25
ministers, if I'm correct, right, and that what the other
47:28
mission is. Yeah.
47:30
And they do have the school, the Ubis school that they run, which
47:34
is an online school. It's just, but it's not
47:37
credential. And that's the problem with it.
47:39
I, I love the program and I promote it all the time.
47:41
I think it's wonderful. It's especially if you're a new
47:44
reader, it, it has that fellowship quality to it.
47:47
And you can share with other people that that to me is good,
47:50
but it's not a credentialed course.
47:53
I would feel better if if it was introduced into universities.
47:58
I'm not sure which category it would fall under.
48:01
But certainly, my God, you know, all the work that Halbert's been
48:06
doing, you've been doing others trying to give validity to this
48:11
book and the scientific stuff that's coming out.
48:14
I mean, maybe And you and I had that argument.
48:18
Academia deserves, they should really with clear eyes look at
48:23
this book and at least study it from AI don't know a religious
48:28
point of view. I mean, it's kind of fantastic.
48:30
Here we have this book that reportedly was given to us by
48:34
celestial beings 100 years ago. That that's pretty significant.
48:38
We haven't had a miracle like that come along in a while, you
48:42
know? It's the same thing, Jim, in
48:45
every category we've talked about.
48:47
It's the same problem. It's a chicken and egg thing.
48:51
I'm, I'm kind of part of academia, A quasi academic
48:54
person. I've been with these guys.
48:56
I just went to a very academic seminary.
48:59
They don't know what it is. So there's no way for them to
49:02
study it. There's no grants for that.
49:06
There's no outreach to them. There's no secondary works that
49:12
they use, just a few that are in the category academic secondary
49:16
works. So there's just no body of work
49:19
to to draw from. In other words, you know, when I
49:22
was in the seminary, I make it quick.
49:25
You know, my, I have pretty visionary professor who allowed
49:29
me to write about the rancher book in my thesis.
49:35
And he thank God, he was an open minded guy, but he he noted that
49:41
you have nothing to quote Byron. You have, you have to quote that
49:46
there's no scholars. Well, it's just just your core
49:50
text, but you have no scholars, no theologians, no nobody.
49:55
That's that's written a study. So how are you going to do this?
50:00
I said, well, we're not the, the, the, the, the thesis is
50:02
only going to cover it briefly. That was the only way I could do
50:05
that because that's you can't do academic study if you don't have
50:11
any other studies. Like saying I have a cure for
50:14
cancer but we have no studies to prove it.
50:16
Yeah. And then, well, it's a common
50:21
sense. I mean, you know, anything in
50:23
the world that you want to launch, you have to have support
50:26
from experts. And we had never really reached
50:30
out to these ex people in the field until, you know, recently
50:36
I was the one that proposed that they fund a booth at the largest
50:40
academic conference in the world.
50:42
And you know, I think you know the story, right.
50:44
So I. Mean it was, it was semi
50:47
successful from what you told me, but it's still a lot of work
50:52
to do, yeah. It's just a lot of work because
50:54
again, the branding, the name recognition is just not there.
50:57
They walk by the booth. You can tell you look at their
51:00
face of what? What is this weird thing?
51:02
You know, they nothing means nothing.
51:05
There was just a few handful, half dozen professors do come up
51:10
and say, well, my, I've heard of this.
51:12
I had a student that say, you know, that was it in four days
51:17
and we did it a second time and it was even seemingly harder the
51:23
second time. We did it in San Diego in
51:24
20/24/24. Is this almost like thing went
51:28
backwards? Well, that's California.
51:30
That's the problem there. It's California, but it's the
51:32
same scholars from all over the world.
51:34
But my feeling out of that was, man, this is not going to be
51:38
easy. You, you, you can't do this
51:41
without serious support from the Ranch Foundation, ranch
51:45
Fellowship, serious money backing.
51:48
It's just it's almost impossible.
51:53
It's been good to catch up with you and I really enjoyed our
51:55
time more than we thought we would do.
51:57
But I really appreciate it though.
51:59
Thank you very much for doing this again and reaching out.
52:02
I appreciate and thanks for keeping the show going.
52:06
You've gone a long time. Once again, thank you to Byron
52:09
Boletzo joining us on this edition of the Rancho Radio
52:13
Podcast. We really enjoyed spending time
52:15
together.