Matthew Block - The Urantia Diaries of Harold and Martha Sherman: Volume Six: 1955-1998

Copyright Page

THE URANTIA DIARIES

of HAROLD and MARTHA SHERMAN

VOLUME SIX: 1955-1998

Compiled, Transcribed and Edited by

Matthew Block and Saskia Praamsma

Copyright 2020 Square Circles Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without

prior permission in writing of the publisher.

We wish to thank the staff at the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Central Arkansas, Conway, particularly Jimmy Bryant, Betty Osborn, David E. Bowie, Cynthia Frase, Artency Davis, Michelle Strouse, Sarah Langford and Aryn Denette, for helping us research the Sherman Collection. Our gratitude also goes out to the late Mary Sherman Kobiella, Marcia Sherman Lynch and Joan Kobiella Searles for sharing letters, photos, memories, and friendship.

Cover images, clockwise from top: 1. Bill Sadler with boxes of Urantia Books hot off the press, October 1955; 2. Lady Suzanne Wilkins with a bust of her late husband Sir Hubert Wilkins circa early 1960s; 3. Clyde Bedell; 4. Ruth and Robert Burton; 5. Julia Early Fenderson at 533 during a study session in the 1960s; 6. Harold and Martha Sherman in Hollywood late 1950s; 7. Dr. Sadler at OHare airport with French translator Jacques Weiss in 1960; 8. A group of readers at a study session at 533 in 1959.

All documents and images included in this book, except where otherwise noted, are to be found in the Harold Sherman collection at the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Central Arkansas. Cover images 1,3,5,7, 8: Urantia Book Fellowship; 2: Byrd Polar Institute, Ohio State University; 4: Chuck Burton; 6: UCA.

Cover and interior: Syrp & Co.

Page numbers referenced in this eBook refer to the print version which will be available at a later date.

eISBN: 978-1-7344621-2-8

ISBN: 978-1-7344621-3-5

Published by Square Circles Publishing

www.SquareCirclesPublishing.com

Introduction

This last volume of The Urantia Diaries of Harold and Martha Sherman spans four decades; it begins with the Shermans receiving the just-published The Urantia Book in October 1955 and ends with Marthas death in 1998, Harold predeceasing her in 1987.

This volume follows not only the parallel tracks of the slowly growing Urantia readership and the later stages of Harolds career, but also the intersectionsthe Shermans witting and unwitting encounters with Urantia Book readers and those otherwise connected with the book.

Among the unwitting encounters were those with Hornell Hart, Eldred Cocking, and W.W. Keeler. Hornell Hart, a professor of sociology who lectured with Harold on ESP, was given a copy of the book by the Urantia Brotherhood in 1956. Unbeknownst to him, he was a Urantia Book source author; his 1941 book, New Gateways to Creative Living, was used to write a section of Paper 111. His lack of interest in the Urantia Book prevented him from spotting the parallels; if he had recognized them and brought them to Sadlers or the publics attention, the public image of the book might have been significantly affected. Eldred Cocking served on the General Council of the Urantia Brotherhood from 1965 to 1972. He met Harold at a meeting in 1965 for UFO enthusiasts and wrote Harold a complimentary letter the following year on the latters 1965 book, How to Solve Mysteries of Your Mind and Soul . Neither knew of the others involvement with Urantia. W.W. Keeler, chairman of the board of Phillips Petroleum Company in Oklahoma, met Harold in 1969 and funded some of his ESP projects; he apparently wasnt aware of Harolds past association with Urantia, nor did Harold know that Keelers son, Richard, was becoming a fervent Urantia believer and would go on to become (at the time of this writing) the longest-serving trustee of the Urantia Foundation.

But most of the Shermans contacts with Urantians were intentional. Though they never returned to 533 Diversey Parkway after leaving Chicago in 1947, they stayed in contact with a handful of Forumite friendsElsie Baumgartner, Rachel Gusler, Julia Fenderson, Grace Palmer and her sisters Lulu Steinbeck and Caroline Brown, and Robert and Ruth Burtonwho kept them abreast of developments in the post-Forum era of the organized Urantia readership. Harold also maintained correspondence with Sir Hubert Wilkins until the latters death in November 1958.

In the late 1950s, Harolds career pursuits took him and Martha back to Hollywood, where they lived for four years and met some Urantia Book readers active in the study groups in Southern California. One of these was Melvin H. (Bud) Kagan, a good friend of Bill Sadler. After hearing the Shermans tell of their mistreatment by Dr. Sadler in connection with the Sherman rebellion in 1942, Kagan went to Chicago in about 1959 and interviewed Bill to get his side of the story. Bill, then married to his second wife and estranged from his father, affirmed that Sadler had indeed been deceitful in his handling of the affair, having lied to Forumites about receiving a communication warning him about Harold. In early 1963, within a year before Bill Sadlers untimely death, Harold sent him a letter proposing they work together to repackage the Urantia teachings to appeal to a broader public, but the letter went unanswered.

In 1964, after struggling for years to sell his plays and musicals and to market his TNT film and self-help albums, Harold broke through with his How to Make ESP Work for You, a book he promoted on TV and radio shows. The proceeds from this book helped the Shermans pay off their longstanding debts, and from this point on Harold made a reputation for himself as a popular authority on ESP. He set up the ESP Research Associates Foundation (ESPRA) in his home state of Arkansas and spent the rest of his career writing and lecturing prolifically on telepathy, psychic surgery, communication with the dead, and other aspects of psychic phenomena. ESPRA sponsored an annual Mind/Body/Healing Workshop from 1969 to 1978, held in various cities in the South and Midwest, which featured such ESP luminaries as Uri Geller, Arthur Ford and Jeane Dixon, and attracted as many as one thousand attendees.

In his lectures and classes Harold occasionally mentioned the Urantia Book and his association with it, which brought inquiries from those interested in learning more. He had periodically considered writing about his Urantia experiences ever since Harry Loose instructed him and Martha to keep a diary to be used in an eventual book about Urantia which would be a companion to the Urantia Book itself. But it wasnt until Harold was reaching the end of his career that he decided to write a book about his lifelong search for truth and include a chapter on Urantia.