Personal Testimonial – Santiago Kneeland

The Way I Found The Urantia Book

A personal testimonial by Santiago Kneeland

I was 19 years old when I found the book. I was in a process of discovery, or rediscovery of God.

I was born and raised Catholic, but at this stage of my life I had become disenfranchised from the religion. There were too many things that didn't match up, such as factual explanations of divine concepts, structure, dogmas, etc. I had found myself around 17 in line for communion realizing that many of the people attending mass were not there to connect with God, but rather stay away from hell. If they fulfilled the church’s commandment of attending mass once a week, then they got their name crossed from the list and we’re off good for another week….

I yearned to have a connection with God. I had it since a very young age, and was at a point in my life where I needed to have a strong relationship with him. So I started exploring native American traditions. I loved the concept of the great spirit, and that we are all one with him. It had a very "star wars" concept of the force, where it's beyond good or evil. I also studied the Mayan maps, especially the one that focuses on the human matrix pattern. A concept clearly explained in The Urantia Book.

All this exploration opened my mind, and led me through a path of discovery. It also helped my mind become malleable enough for something like The Urantia Book to come into my life and be able to read and understand it.

I found it during a Flower of Life workshop (sacred geometry). It was a 6-day workshop, and we were encouraged to share thoughts, quotes, and poems at the beginning of the sessions. On one occasion, one of the participants read a quote from The Urantia Book. I remember clearly that what he read was full of love, and at the same time was a flawless affirmation of a truth or a divine law. I sensed at that moment that the words were not of this world. To my surprise, when I asked more about it, the lady that was giving the workshop took out a book from her shelf, and to my surprise, it was The Urantia Book. I looked at it, opened it, and was astonished at the size and detail of the book. I spent some time with the book, reading the content, looking over the papers, and taking it all in.

At the same time I heard this version of the story of its origins, from the participant that read the quote. I don’t know if this is the case with everybody, and back when I found it you couldn’t really google as you can today, but this is the funny story of the origin I heard:

A bank in Chicago was going to be moved, and they were closing all the safe boxes. Everybody had claimed their belongings, but there was one safe box that had no claim. They had no record, nor anything. So, it got to a point where they had to open the box, with a court order in hand. When they opened the box, they found a pile of documents that were called the Urantia papers. The people that got possession of the documents looked them over, and realized that they were out of this world. So, they decided to create the Urantia Foundation.

The rest of the story is basically the same as the true origin story. The documents were printed in the mid 50’s and the Foundation has been translating, printing and distributing the book ever since.

Anyways… After I had my brief encounter with the book, I asked for it as my Christmas gift in 1999. I received it during a vacation in the USA, and began to read it on January 1, 2000. It took me 4 years to read from top to end. There were times where I had to go slow, in order to understand and in many times to reflect. Some other times, such as the life and teachings of Jesus, went very fast. I was caught in the story, and read it almost like a novel.

In the end, the book re-introduced Jesus to me. Practically all the concerns I had with the Church’s version of Jesus and God were cleared. I understood the trinity, who Jesus was, his true purpose on earth, our personal relationship with God. I even understood evolution and the history of humanity, so it went beyond the purely divine or spiritual, to very practical subjects that made day-to-day living more understandable. It helped me make peace with the Catholic religion, understanding its historic importance and necessity for the evolution of mankind. The book basically reintroduced God, Creation, Jesus, and our purpose. From then on everything made sense. I could understand the hardships and their use for soul tempering. I could communicate with God freely and candidly. I could understand my mission and service to mankind in establishing the brotherhood of man and kingdom of God.

It's been more than 20 years since I started reading the book. Back then communication was limited, and we didn’t have the tools to communicate. Today, I see a great opportunity to extend the reach of the Revelation in the many initiatives that are popping into the world. I believe that all Urantia Book readers have a desire to communicate the revelation, and now they are getting the opportunity to collaborate with projects that do just that.

I am happy and blessed to be contributing with the Center for Unity and their ministry. The main driving force is to share with younger generations that God has a personal connection with the individual, and that we can have a one-on-one relationship with him. We hope to accomplish what The Urantia Book did to each one of us after we read it: to have a personal relationship with God.

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