"Throughout the long process of receiving the papers (1925-1942), a combination of methods of transmission were used. The revelators said they would, with their human partners, pick a standard American English guide and "stick with it." They selected the University of Chicago Manual of Style, which was then and still is the standard for the publishing industry in the United States. All elements of page designs, including boldface and italics, were either dictated by the revelators (vocally) or indicted in handwriting—that not of the Contact Commissioners. Bold face and italics are used for emphasis, with all caps being the stronger of the two. Those (at the beginning of each paper) are for page design (style).  In this way, in the early drafts that the revelators dictated, the standard rules would apply except for words with special emphasis, such as italics and all caps, where they would dictate special punctuation.

Handwritten transmissions of the papers looked like the handwriting of the human subject, but he had no memory of writing them and no test performed (such as muscle fatigue) could prove that he wrote them. In the handwritten manuscripts, the revelators simply used the printers' notation system (standard copy editing and proofreading symbols) for italics and capitalization on the line of text and in the margins to instruct the typewriter (always Christy) who would use underlining to indicate italics since typewriters did not have italic typefaces. In dictation, the revelators would just use standard dictation techniques in which punctuation is spoken out loud.

The graphic design instructions, of the final revelatory manuscript, were used for the final typing (number 5) by Christy and used for the typesetters at Donnelley. By then, the Revelatory Commission would have developed the final page design for printing, which would have been tested by the Forum members who read the typewritten papers over the years at 533 (Urantia Foundation). They heard them read orally during the Forum meetings and studied the type-written drafts, including the final type-written manuscript."

     You may be surprised to learn that there are 1679 of these special words and phrases that have been used 2,314 times! There are even a few whole sentences italicized that we selected as featured quotes in the book. Our dear friends, Bob and Linda Buselli, were convinced that "suddenly" would probably be the victor in this little race of important Urantia words, but we soon found out that the great and powerful "I AM" took the grand prize by an impressive triple margin! (Linda would have been surprised—she graduated earlier this summer and we miss her very much.) The index will give you an idea of the numbers, but we also displayed a word cloud on the back cover of the book that includes the top words weighted by how many times they were used. Most used only once are too small to be seen!

     Over the years, we made a special note of the emphasized words during study group discussions. Each time we found one of these little jewels, we would stop and ask what about these quotes was so important? Why were the revelators trying to impress us with these words each time? Perhaps they wanted us to stop and ponder these quotes just a little more than normal, to make sure that we let the concept sink in—so that is exactly what we did. In a book as large and important as The Urantia Book, where every paragraph is a treasure unto itself, it might be easy to overlook a certain idea for years. At some point, we began collecting a list of them just for fun.

     Obviously, our list has grown over time, and as you can see—here we are today with over 300 pages jam-packed with quotes that evidently the revelators felt were concepts important enough to emphasize for us. We decided to take our own advice—and put the idea into action. We wanted to get the collection out there for the Urantia community to take a look at. We hope It might be a useful resource for those who are serious students of The Urantia Book, but especially for our new readers as well. In proofing through the text, we decided to include a limited number of judiciously chosen surrounding quotes to assure the stories and lists were complete, and the emphasized words would be read in the proper "context." We also opted to make the emphasized words stand out a little more by using boldface for them. Older readers may thank us later!

     We believe that selections of quotes from different sections in The Urantia Book can be very illuminating and powerful when studied together. Our friend, the former Executive Director of Urantia Foundation, Jay Peregrine, turned us on to the technique of using the online search engine to gather parallel quotes when he made a presentation for one of our GLMUA Fall Study Sessions several years ago. Being able to read the book online, and to use the search engine certainly was useful to us while working on this project. We feel confident that we've found every single word for this project, but please make sure to let us know if you discover that we missed a word! (Perhaps searching for them will bring new insights to your study of The Urantia Book!)

     We've been told that all great books have books written about them. We often say that finding The Urantia Book was like hitting the "lottery of truth" for us, however, we found it is easier to give away money than truth! For us, The Urantia Book is definitely the greatest book of the past century. Rick has the most unique story of all when it comes to finding The Urantia Book, but I found the book through a secondary work, The Day of Celestial Visitation by Ernest P. Moyer. It is the reason why Rick and I place such importance on secondary works. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Moyer at a conference several years ago, and I personally thanked him for his book, and the great gift of truth that it led me to discover. He was very gracious and humble about it.  

     Each secondary work will hopefully create a direct path back to the original and great book, The Urantia Book. We know that secondary works also help to keep distributors interested in handling the older, great and original book. That may be another unintentional, but added benefit of doing this project. We hope you will enjoy it whether you are a seasoned student or new reader. We are pleased to share the gift, and blessed to serve wherever possible.

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