The 1989 Separation
For 34 years, Urantia Foundation and the Urantia Brotherhood worked side by side. The Foundation held the copyright and published the book; the Brotherhood handled reader services, study groups, and community building. But tensions had been building for years over governance, authority, and the direction of the movement.
In 1989, the relationship fractured. Urantia Foundation revoked the Brotherhood's license to use the name "Urantia" and the concentric circles symbol. The Brotherhood reorganized independently as the Fifth Epochal Fellowship, later renamed the Urantia Book Fellowship.
The split was driven by disputes over the Foundation's aggressive copyright enforcement, disagreements about organizational autonomy, and philosophical differences about how best to serve the revelation. Martin Myers, then president of Urantia Foundation, was a central figure in the conflict.
The Copyright Wars
The years following the split were marked by contentious legal battles over the copyright of The Urantia Book. Two landmark cases defined this era:
Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra (1997)
Kristen Maaherra, a reader in Arizona, created and distributed a computerized version of The Urantia Book without the Foundation's permission. The Foundation sued for copyright infringement. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1997 that the Foundation's copyright renewal was valid, but the case raised fundamental questions about who could "author" a work claimed to be of superhuman origin. The court accepted that human involvement in the compilation process was sufficient for copyright, but the precedent was narrow.
Michael Foundation v. Urantia Foundation (2001)
Harry McMullan III and the Michael Foundation published "Jesus: A New Revelation," containing Papers 121 through 196 of The Urantia Book. Urantia Foundation sued for copyright infringement. In 2001, an Oklahoma jury found that the Foundation's copyright renewal was invalid, effectively placing the English text of The Urantia Book into the public domain in the United States. The Foundation chose not to appeal, and the ruling stood.
In 2006, the international copyright expired as well, making the original English text of The Urantia Book public domain worldwide. Individual translations remain copyrighted by their respective translators or the Foundation.
Reconciliation Efforts
In the years following the copyright disputes, the major organizations began taking steps toward cooperation. Under the leadership of Mo Siegel at Urantia Foundation (beginning in 2008), the tone shifted from litigation to collaboration.
A landmark Unity Meeting was held in 2016, bringing together representatives from Urantia Foundation, the Urantia Book Fellowship, and Urantia Association International. The meeting focused on shared goals: translations, study group support, digital accessibility, and joint outreach.
Today, the three organizations cooperate on several fronts: the joint Study Group Directory, shared conference participation, and coordinated international outreach. While organizational unification has not occurred, the spirit of cooperation has improved significantly. The focus across all groups has shifted from institutional competition to serving the global readership and making the revelation accessible to all people.
The Current Landscape
The Urantia movement today is more decentralized and cooperative than at any point since the split. Study groups thrive independently of organizational affiliation. Digital platforms have democratized access to the text and to community. New readers often encounter the book without any awareness of the historical divisions.
The lessons of the split continue to inform the community: that the revelation belongs to no single organization, that unity of purpose matters more than uniformity of structure, and that the teachings of The Urantia Book call its readers to a spirit of cooperation and service.