Fellowship for Readers of the URANTIA Book

The Fellowship for Readers of The URANTIA Book was founded in 1955 as the URANTIA Brotherhood, an association of students of The URANTIA Book, a 2,097-page collection of material that had been received from numerous celestial beings through the process now known as channeling. The channel for The URANTIA Book has never been revealed by the leaders of the movement in spite of various speculations as to his/her identity. The founding of the brotherhood was occasioned by the initial publication of The URANTIA Book and the opening of the URANTIA Foundation (the organization that owns the copyrights and publishes The URANTIA Book ), both of which also occurred in 1955.

For many years the brotherhood and the foundation shared space in the movement's Chicago headquarters. The brotherhood organized study groups and local societies across North America, and experienced a period of growth through the 1980s as the New Age Movement placed renewed emphasis on channeled material. However, in the late 1980s a variety of policy differences arose between the foundation and the brotherhood, and in 1989, the brotherhood moved to become an independent organization. The URANTIA Foundation withdrew from the brotherhood the right to use the name "URANTIA " and the associated trademarks. At that time the brotherhood officially changed its name to Fifth Epochal Fellowship. Seventeen of the 21 societies formerly associated with the brotherhood voted to remain affiliated with the new fellowship, which continued to publish its newsletter and hold its annual meeting as it previously had. It also published a copy of The URANTIA Book through its own Uversa Press. In the late 1990s, the fellow-ship assumed its present name.

The split between the foundation and the fellowship was bitter and the foundation moved against the fellowship in order to protect its copyrights and trademarks. At the same time, there were those in both organizations who sought to reconcile the differences. At a meeting in Chicago on October 3, 1997, the leaders of both groups reached an agreement putting aside a number of their differences and outlining future cooperative action. For the fellowship, the most substantive element of the agreement was the foundation's release of the fellowship and Uversa Press from legal problems due to their publication of The URANTIA Book. At the same time, the fellowship agreed not to sell its stock of copies, but to give them away to libraries, prisoners, or people otherwise unable to afford a copy. The initial agreement by no means solved all of the problems between the two organizations, but they formed a joint committee to address continuing concerns in the new millennium.

The fellowship may be contacted at 529 Wrightwood Ave., Chicago, IL 60614. It publishes two periodicals, The Study Group Herald and the Mighty Messenger. The current president is Janet Farrington Graham. It has some 1,200 members.

Sources:

The URANTIA Book. Chicago: Uversa Press, n.d.