Death: The Mystical Advent An atom is, as the dictionary puts it, “a complex arrangement of electrons revolving about a nucleus which contains protons, neutrons and other particles.” There is, of course, a universal order to this revolving, complex arrangement; it is not chaotic, and is consistent from atom to atom. In its role in the formation of matter, we could say that it is “informed.” Indeed, given the extent of its complex arrangement of revolutions, it can be considered an intelligent form, or element, of life. In fact, the entire subatomic network appears to be “alive,” to many physicists—as the cosmos appears to be, to many astronomers. When an atom combines with other atoms to form a molecule, the atomic “information”—which results in its orderly, “intelligent” behavior—is passed along to the molecule. When these molecules orchestrate with other molecules to form our body, the innate informed intelligence, or “wisdom,” does not absent itself from our body: it is the source of wound healing and other orderings of the body. Its capacity for ordering, in fact, goes at least as far back as the gestation which occurs when sperm meets ovum. And, of course, in the sperm and ovum itself this same intelligent ordering has proceeded heretofore. When this innate intelligence, following its own pattern of ordering, closes down the vital functions of the body, the body expires (“breathe out”). The molecules begin an orderly breakdown, and the body reverts to organic elements—minerals or other atomic constituents—in the earth, sea or air. These elements are freed to again combine in another form. For example, they may be leached up
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