the consciousness of the atom

 

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As you now have the definition of the atom (I am quoting from the Standard Dictionary) it is:

“An atom is a centre of force, a phase of electrical phenomena, a centre of energy, active through its own internal make-up, and giving off heat or radiation.”

Therefore, an atom is (as Lord Kelvin in 1867 thought it would ultimately turn out to be) a “vortex ring”, or centre of force, and not a particle of what we understand as tangible substance. This ultimate particle of matter is now demonstrated to be composed of a positive nucleus of energy, surrounded—just as is the sun by the planets—with many electrons or negative corpuscles, thus subdividing the atom of earlier science into numerous lesser bodies. 

The elements differ according to the number and arrangement of these negative electrons around their positive nucleus, and they rotate or move around this central charge of electricity as our planetary system rotates around the sun. Professor Soddy, in one of his latest books, has pointed out that in the atom is to be seen an entire solar system, the central sun can be recognized with the planets pursuing their orbital paths around it.

It would be apparent to each of us that when this definition of the atom is contemplated and studied an entirely new concept of substance comes before us. Dogmatic assertions are therefore out of order, for it is realized that perhaps the next discovery may reveal to us the fact that the electrons themselves may be worlds within worlds.

The atom, then, can be predicated as resolving itself into electrons, and can be expressed in therms of force or energy. When you have a centre of energy or activity you are involved in a dual concept; you have that which is the cause of movement or energy, and that which it energizes or actuates.

We are, therefore, throwing the concept of matter back to where the oriental school has always put it, to primordial stuff, to that which the orientalist call the "primordial ether”. We are led back to that intangible something which is the basis of the objective thing which you and I can see and touch and handle. The word “substance” itself means that which “stands under”, or which lies back of things. All, therefore, that we can predicate in connection with the ether of space is that it is the medium in which energy or force functions, or makes itself felt.

—Alice C. Bailey
The Consciousness of the Atom
A series of Lectures delivered in New York City
Winter of 1921-22

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As is the human body,
So is the cosmic body.

As is the human mind,
So is the cosmic mind.

As is the microcosm,
So is the macrocosm.

As is the atom,
So is the universe.


—The Upanishads

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In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited.

In the mind of each was the same thought.

‘I have come to this lonely place and here is this other,’ was the substance of the thing felt.


—Sherwood Anderson

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