Throughout the passage of time since its publication in 1955, the esoteric and mysterious Urantia Book fascinated several notable rock musicians. This blog post will briefly describe how the Urantia Book influenced several noteworthy rock musicians in the past with respect to their music. But before that, what is really the Urantia Book you might rightfully ask? Well, the Urantia Book claims to be an epochal revelation from celestial beings (with a still unknown Earthly author) putting together science, philosophy, cosmology, spirituality, and religion without dogma for the overall betterment of mankind (it also delves into mankind’s history and the role of the mortal man in the universe). The very name Urantia from the book’s title is actually a reference to planet Earth (or an alternative spiritual name for it, if you will).
My personal hardcover copy of the Urantia Book (which I ordered via Amazon while I was still living in Aalborg, Denmark). Image source: personal photograph
Now heading back to rock music, the Urantia Book proved to be a very interesting read for several big names of the rock genre (as well as beyond, e.g. the illustrious, highly technical, and innovative bassist Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report) and among these are the following (listed in no particular order than the one from my memory):
- Steve Vai (legendary rock guitarist who performed in Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth’s band as well as in Whitesnake; he also has a very successful and well-established solo career and studied guitar under the guidance of yet another magnificent rock guitarist, namely Joe Satriani, back when he was a teenager);
- Jimi Hendrix (highly influential legendary rock guitarist);
- Stevie Ray Vaughan (legendary blues rock guitarist);
- Jerry Garcia (the frontman of classic rock band Grateful Dead);
- Kerry Livgren (legendary guitarist and keyboardist, member of American classic rock band Kansas);
- Randy California (from the rock band Spirit);
- Leonard Cohen;
- Elvis Presley (the King of Rock and Roll, as he is also known);
- Carlos Santana (legendary guitarist);
- Willie Nelson;
- Mike Pinder (from the Moody Blues);
- Chris Birkett (who previously collaborated in his long career with Sinéad O’Connor or Buffy Sainte-Marie, among others).
This list can be probably longer, but, based on my research so far on rock musicians who read the Urantia Book, they are known to have read and/or been influenced for certain by it. For example, regarding the influence the Urantia Book had on their music, guitarist Steve Vai composed and released a song called ‘Midway Creatures’ which is featured on his solo studio album Real Illusions: Reflections (released in 2005). The song is a reference towards paper 77 of the Urantia Book on the midway creatures. Below you can listen to this song embedded via YouTube:
Last but not least, I presume Canadian-American musician, singer-songwriter, and guitarist Joni Mitchell might have heard (or knows of) the Urantia Book via her friend Buffy Sainte-Marie, but this just my supposition, not a certainty, just a thought. At the same time, it is also possible that she might have known about the Urantia Book via Jaco Pastorius with whom she had collaborated during the 1970s. Either way, there is no trace of influence of the Urantia Book in her discography that I know of.
Documentation sources and external links:
- Personal knowledge and research on the Urantia Book on the internet
- Urantia on www.wikipedia.org (in Romanian; an article which also includes my contributions)
- Urantia-boken on www.wikipedia.org (in Norwegian Bokmål; an article which also includes my contributions)
- Urantia Book on www.wikipedia.org (in English; an article which also includes several contributions of mine throughout the passage of time)