Is consciousness a product of the soul, or an illusion the brain creates? Has creation always existed, or does it have a point of beginning? Is matter infinitely refinable, or is there some indivisible building block for all physical creation? Is the universe infinite or a finite "closed" system? Has the human being always been a distinct creation, or did we evolve from a lesser species? Is there a Creator whose design has guided the evolution of human society, or did creation and human society come about by pure chance? And if there is a Creator, why does he seem to allow injustice to thrive and the innocent to suffer so that we call natural disasters "acts of God"?

In Close Connections author and scholar John Hatcher employs axioms drawn from the Baha'I Faith as tools for probing answers to these and other questions that relate to one overriding question: What is the purpose of physical reality? At the heart of the quest for these answers is a provocative analogy - a comparison of the creation and functioning of the individual human being with the method by which creation as a whole has come into being and progresses towards some as yet concealed destiny.

If the conclusions Hatcher draws from this study are correct, then every branch of science must in time reconsider its understanding of reality to include at least one additional dimension - the metaphysical or spiritual dimension - and its relationship to, and influence on, material reality.