Thought Adjuster

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The term Thought Adjuster is found in The Urantia Book and is believed to have originated in the book. A Thought Adjuster is described as a fragment of God and is also variously termed a Mystery Monitor, "inner voice", and "divine spark", among other descriptive phrases.

Every normal-minded person is said to be given one Thought Adjuster from God on making their first moral decision, typically around the age of six. A Thought Adjuster is considered a gift of God's actual presence within a person's mind, working to lead the individual non-coercively throughout life to higher, more-spiritualized thinking.

Though they possess volition, a Thought Adjuster dwelling in the mind of a human partner is said to be wholly subservient to the human's will and personality decisions. Thought Adjusters are described as being "pre-personal", pure spirit beings that have mind and volition, but not personality. They are likened to a compass or a pilot, whereas the human will is "captain", with sole authority to choose to follow or ignore the guidance of the Adjuster. A person's soul, with the potential to survive death, emerges as a new reality from the joint work of the Adjuster and the free will decisions of the human partner to accept its leadings. The Thought Adjuster is described as working in a person's mind in ways that are not fully apparent to the individual.

From Paper 110, "Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals":

The Thought Adjuster is engaged in a constant effort so to spiritualize your mind as to evolve your [soul]; but you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.  

Certain abrupt presentations of thoughts, conclusions, and other pictures of mind are sometimes the direct or indirect work of the Adjuster; but far more often they are the sudden emergence into consciousness of ideas which have been grouping themselves together in the submerged mental levels, natural and everyday occurrences of normal and ordinary psychic function inherent in the circuits of the evolving animal mind. (In contrast with these subconscious emanations, the revelations of the Adjuster appear through the realms of the superconscious.)

There exists a vast gulf between the human and the divine, between man and God. The Urantia races are so largely electrically and chemically controlled, so highly animallike in their common behavior, so emotional in their ordinary reactions, that it becomes exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to guide and direct them. You are so devoid of courageous decisions and consecrated co-operation that your indwelling Adjusters find it next to impossible to communicate directly with the human mind. Even when they do find it possible to flash a gleam of new truth to the evolving mortal soul, this spiritual revelation often so blinds the creature as to precipitate a convulsion of fanaticism or to initiate some other intellectual upheaval which results disastrously. Many a new religion and strange "ism" has arisen from the aborted, imperfect, misunderstood, and garbled communications of the Thought Adjusters.

The concept of the Thought Adjuster shares a number of similarities with the inner light tradition of Quakerism and the Buddha-nature concept of Buddhism. In ways it is comparable to the Hindu atman, the ancient Egyptian ka, and from philosophy, what Socrates referred to as his "daimonion". In relation to biblical traditions, it is described by The Urantia Book as the meaning behind the idea that people are "made in God's image", that the "kingdom of God is within", and that there is a "true light which lights every man who comes into the world."

From Paper 108, "Mission and Ministry of Thought Adjusters":

The Adjuster is the mark of divinity, the presence of God. The "image of God" does not refer to physical likeness nor to the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal bestowal of the Thought Adjusters upon the humble creatures of the universes. 

The Adjuster is the wellspring of spiritual attainment and the hope of divine character within you. He is the power, privilege, and the possibility of survival, which so fully and forever distinguishes you from mere animal creatures. He is the higher and truly internal spiritual stimulus of thought in contrast with the external and physical stimulus, which reaches the mind over the nerve-energy mechanism of the material body.

The book says that a person is ultimately destined to fuse with his or her divine fragment and become one inseparable entity with it if the person has chosen to accept the Adjuster's leadings and become self-identified with it. The act of fusion is described as the moment when a human personality has successfully and unalterably won eternal life, typically taking place in the afterlife, but also a possibility during earthly life. The result during earthly life is a "fusion flash" as the material body is consumed in a fiery light and the soul is "translated" to the hereafter. (The Hebrew prophet Elijah being taken to heaven without death in "chariots of fire" is said to be a rare example in recorded history of a person who attained fusion.) Once merged with his or her fragment of God, a person continues as an ascending citizen in the universe, traveling through numerous worlds on a long, adventurous pilgrimage of growth and learning that leads eventually to Paradise.