Syntergic Theory: We Live in a Holographic Matrix and Shamans Can Manipulate It

 

What if everything you think you know about reality is only the surface? His followers believe Dr. Jacobo Grinberg may have unlocked a hidden world beneath our everyday experience, one where consciousness reshapes reality itself.

On December 8, 1994, this brilliant neuroscientist vanished without a trace, disappearing into thin air while investigating mysteries most scientists dared not touch.

Dr. Jacobo Grinberg was no ordinary scientist. He was a bold explorer of the mind, a pioneer in consciousness, on a quest to unlock new chapters of reality. But was Dr. Grinberg’s disappearance the end of his story, or the beginning of something far stranger?

Jacobo Grinberg was born in 1946 in Mexico City into a Jewish family. But his roots stretched beyond Mexico: his heritage was intertwined with the rich tapestry of Jewish mysticism, a factor that would deeply shape his life’s work.

From his earliest days, Grinberg was not a typical child. Surrounded by stories of Kabbalah, the ancient Jewish tradition exploring hidden layers of reality, he developed an insatiable curiosity about consciousness and the nature of existence.

At a young age, this curiosity propelled him across the ocean. In his early adulthood, Grinberg traveled to Israel, spending significant time in the city of Safed, considered the spiritual heart of Kabbalah since medieval times. Here, in the shadow of ancient synagogues and amid whispered secrets of the cosmos, he encountered a world where science and spirituality intertwined in a dance as old as history.

During his stay, strange and extraordinary phenomena began to take shape in his life. Stories tell of a watch stopping at a precise, predicted moment during a seance, an event he witnessed himself. These experiences planted a seed: reality might be far more fluid than the physical senses reveal.

It was also in Israel that he met his first wife, Lizette Arditti, who would become both his partner in life and an important witness to his extraordinary journey. Their shared experiences and support would be vital as Grinberg embarked on a path few dared to tread.

Jacobo Grinberg returned to Mexico with a mission: To understand the mind, not just within the limits of traditional neuroscience, but as an explorer of its farthest reaches.

He trained as a neuroscientist in New York and returned to his homeland as a prodigy with a mission: to crack the code of human consciousness and to bridge spirituality, physics, and the brain. By age 45, he’d published over 50 books, led government-funded labs, braved the jungles with shamans, and became a legend in Mexican science.

But here’s the twist. Grinberg didn’t just study the mind; he chased the paranormal. And some say… it chased him back.

What did Grinberg stumble upon that got the attention of world-famous scientists, and, maybe, global intelligence agencies Imagine a scientist who explored the very boundaries of reality itself. Grinberg didn’t just believe that brains create consciousness; he theorized that consciousness is a fundamental structure of reality, one you might be able to access like… tuning a radio.

He built not just one lab, but an entire institute, the National Institute for the Study of Consciousness (Instituto Nacional para el Estudio de la Conciencia) in Mexico, where he explored the greatest question: where does experience come from?

What if consciousness isn’t locked in your skull, but a field that surrounds us and connects us all? What if the brain is merely an antenna, tuning into this field—a field that, if consciously accessed, would allow impossible phenomena?

Dr. Grinberg called it “Syntergic Theory,” and it was his greatest achievement.

His theory wasn’t just philosophy; it was a blueprint for exploring telepathy, mystical experiences, and even materialization. But did it work? The answer may have cost him everything. He claimed to see the impossible, and some say it got him killed. But first, what did he do in those secret labs?

The mind, he said, taps into a “lattice”—a universal spatial structure underpinning all existence. When the brain distorts this lattice, sensory reality is created.

Sound familiar? If you’ve heard of the holographic universe, or “non-local” physics, you’re in Grinberg’s neighborhood. But Grinberg’s lattice wasn’t just philosophical. He tried to prove it in the lab.

If consciousness is non-local, could minds connect, brain-to-brain, across space and time? Grinberg set up radical experiments to find out…and the results might bridge science and the supernatural.

What did Grinberg do? He pioneered experiments analyzing hemispheric brain coherence, the synchrony between the brain’s two halves, under meditation and other altered states. More radically, he studied “brain-to-brain” interactions, inspired by Einstein’s famous Gedanken Experiment—EPR, or also known as a thought experiment. His final experiments involved subjects in isolated rooms separated by distance, testing whether brain activity could non-locally influence another’s neural patterns.

Grinberg called this phenomenon the “transferred potential” — a neurobiological sign of non-local communication.

Though controversial, Grinberg’s work anticipated modern parapsychological research and remains influential in corridors studying consciousness studies beyond the brain.

Science, for Jacobo, was not confined to classrooms or labs. His most extraordinary work happened deep in Mexico’s mountains and streets, among shamans and curanderos (a Spanish word for healer).

His most famous collaborator was Pachita (named Bárbara Guerrero), a seemingly ordinary woman with extraordinary powers. Pachita performed “impossible surgeries,” extracting and restoring organs with an old rusty knife and her bare hands. Eyes closed, blood covering her clothes, gripping knives that to any surgeon would be relics, her cures baffled and amazed thousands.

Jacobo documented dozens of nights attending Pachita’s surgeries, filled with sweat, blood, and miracles defying explanation. He was both skeptic and chronicler, carefully recording these events in what would become seven volumes: Los Chamanes de México.

For the scientist who sought to uncover where experience originates, Pachita’s healing did not negate his science; it fed it.

Where did Jacobo find the keys to the universe?

Who were his true teachers?

And what fateful events led to his sudden disappearance in 1994?

For Dr. Jacobo Grinberg, it wasn’t enough to observe the world; he wanted to decode reality itself. Central to his science was the revolutionary Syntergic Theory. What is it?

According to Grinberg, space isn’t an empty void; it’s a living, interconnected lattice, a universal informational matrix that contains all potential experiences. The brain, he argued, doesn’t create consciousness, but acts more like a receiver, a radio dial tuning into the infinite songs of the cosmos. Perception and “reality” arise from the interaction between this syntergic field and our neural networks.

“The result of this process is what everyone understands as ‘reality.’ This theory tries to answer the question of the creation of the experience.”

Under the Syntergic model, psychic phenomena, telepathy, remote viewing, and even shamanic miracles aren’t supernatural. They’re natural, arising from a state when minds achieve coherence and plug into the universal field.

But can such a bold theory be proved—or is it just modern-day mysticism?

It wasn’t until 1974 that Mexico got its first national society for parapsychology (Sociedad Mexicana de Parapsicología), founded by psychiatrist Carlos Treviño. This group focused on introducing more critical and scientific thinking to the subject, aiming to educate both church leaders and the public about the distinction between magic and genuine scientific investigation [Source]

They even offered official courses for future priests and researched haunted places using things like Kirlian photography, a way to capture “energy fields” on film!

Mexico also hosted big conferences, drawing global experts in parapsychology and skepticism. The Mexican Society for Skeptical Investigation made sure to include fierce critics at their events, so every claim could be looked at with a careful eye.

In Mexico City, Grinberg’s Lab became the hub for dangerous ideas: meditation marathons, tests of “eyeless sight,” and, most famously, the “transferred potential” experiment. In essence, he’d separate two subjects into different rooms. One would be shown a stimulus—a light or a sound—while both wore EEG monitors.

Sometimes, incredibly, brainwave disturbances would occur in both subjects, even when only one received the stimulus. This suggested the possibility of a direct, non-local mind-to-mind connection, a real-world echo of quantum entanglement but involving human beings.

Were these results real or an artifact of hope and belief?

Grinberg’s experiments were sometimes replicated, sometimes not. But they were enough to draw attention far beyond academia—including government agencies attracted by the specter of mind control or psychic espionage.

In 1919, a German-born doctor named Gustav Pagenstecher, who was well respected in Mexico’s medical community, accidentally discovered supposed psychic abilities in his patient, María Reyes de Zierold, during a hypnosis session. Intrigued, he began a series of scientific experiments to test her talents. The results were so surprising that he contacted the American Society for Psychical Research, and their investigator, Walter Franklin Prince, traveled to Mexico. Prince was so impressed, he published the findings in a leading research journal.

Pagenstecher’s real achievement? For the first time, he used hypnosis to try to “train” psychic abilities, and he showed that the way psychic impressions are linked to objects might work like normal memory does for ideas, opening up new ways to study the unknown.

In 1937, another big investigation happened. Dr. Enrique Aragón, a top academic and psychiatrist, led a team to examine a 13-year-old boy surrounded by “poltergeist” activity. They even used special scientific tools to try and measure psychic forces! Aragón eventually founded Mexico’s first real organization for psychic research, called the Círculo de Investigaciones Metapsíquicas de México. They spent over a decade studying famous mediums like Luis Martínez, who was said to cause mysterious lights, floating objects, and distant voices.

There was even a Jesuit priest, Carlos María Heredia, who used his expertise as a magician to expose trickery in some so-called spiritualist events, proof that not everyone was convinced!

Fast forward to the 1960s and 70s. Mexico again attracts global attention, this time thanks to famous “curanderas” or healers, like María Sabina, who used hallucinogenic mushrooms, and Pachita, known for her incredible psychic surgeries. These healers fascinated not just the public but world-famous researchers like Stanley Krippner, who came to Mexico to study them.

To most scientists, Grinberg’s next move would seem risky. He left the clean, safe environment of the lab and went into the world of Mexican curanderos, who are traditional healers.

The most famous was Pachita (Bárbara Guerrero), a legendary shamanic surgeon.

She was originally from Chihuahua and had been involved in the Mexican Revolution, moving around the country and working different jobs. But it was only after she settled in the State of Mexico that she became widely known for her unusual healing methods.

Before meeting her, Grinberg had already exposed several fake shamans who tricked people with lies. However, when he unexpectedly visited Pachita’s home for the first time, he was surprised to hear a deep voice from inside the house say, “Jacobo, hurry up. Why are you so late? I’ve been waiting for you.” After that moment, Grinberg witnessed many surgeries and medical procedures at her house that seemed impossible by normal standards.

Pachita would ask her patients to bring bandages, a sheet, and alcohol. She would then perform the surgeries at home using only a simple hunting knife. She would cut open the patient’s body, take out the damaged organ with her hands, and then somehow create a new organ and put it inside. She called this process “Aportes”, meaning “contributions” or “gifts.”

After performing surgery, Pachita would run her hand over the wound, and it would instantly close without leaving any trace. In some cases, she even performed blood transfusions using blood that came from her mouth.

In his book Chamanes de México, Jacobo Grinberg describes his experiences with Pachita and how she would lose awareness of the present moment while doing surgeries or healings. When he read the book to her, she was completely surprised because she had no idea what had happened during those sessions.

Pachita explained this by saying that the spirit of Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor, would take over her body. She called him “Brother” and credited him for all the healing miracles. Grinberg believed there was a much deeper explanation. He thought that when a person connects their consciousness to the “informational matrix” (a kind of deeper reality), high-frequency energy allows for major changes in reality. That’s why Pachita even seemed to take on a different personality—because connecting to this holographic reality removed social conditioning, similar to what happens in deep meditation.

Other changes in reality that Pachita supposedly caused included controlling the weather. She once ended a drought in a village and made it rain so much that nearby rivers overflowed, all while Grinberg watched.

Despite the complexity and miraculous nature of her work, Pachita never charged anyone for her healings. She was also very selective about whom she allowed to observe or study her methods. Many writers, politicians, and scientists came to seek her help, including the famed author of Psychomagic, Alejandro Jodorowsky.

From his time with Pachita, Dr. Grinberg developed his Syntergic Theory, a scientific framework he used to explain the extraordinary things he saw with her and other shamans.

Can belief and intention rewrite reality? Is shamanism a gateway to a universal code?

Grinberg was nobody’s lone madman. He stood atop a mountain of influences—scientific, spiritual, and personal.

–His first wife, Lizette: Met in Israel, a pillar of emotional and intellectual support.

–Jewish Mysticism: Roots running through Kabbalah, especially during his formative years in Safed, Israel—home to centuries of secrets about the nature of existence.

–Carl Pribram: Esteemed neuroscientist who developed the holographic brain theory, visited Grinberg’s lab and was impressed by his audacity.

–Pachita and other shamans: Provided a live demonstration of magical consciousness.

–Contemporaries: Figures such as Carlos Castañeda, the popularizer of shamanic journeying, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, the psychomagician, were within his network of esoteric experimentalists.

These connections emboldened Grinberg to question everything. If the mind could shape reality, what was impossible?

Imagine reality isn’t just out there, but is something we actively help create with our brains.

Jacobo Grinberg’s Syntergic Theory both supports and challenges quantum physics. He spent fifteen years developing this theory, which blends modern physics, neuroscience, mysticism, and the experiences of shamans. By reinterpreting a concept known in physics as the Lattice, which is seen as the structure of space-time, Grinberg proposed that human consciousness might have the power to control the universe we live in.

According to him, the universe is filled with an invisible structure called the “Lattice.” This Lattice is everywhere, and every single point in space holds the information of the entire universe, like a giant cosmic hologram.

The Human brain produces an energetic field, which he called the “neuronal field.” This field, according to Grinberg, expands beyond the physical boundaries of the skull, interacting with the very fabric of space and matter around us.

Grinberg suggested that the brain is not an isolated organ, but rather it interacts dynamically with what he refers to as the “space-matter continuum,” changing its informational content. This means that the thoughts, emotions, and states of consciousness produced by the brain are able to influence not only the individual but potentially others and even physical forces like gravity.

In physics, the Lattice refers to the framework that holds space and time together. But Grinberg gave this idea a new meaning.

According to him, every point in this Lattice contains all the information about the rest of the universe. In physics, this concept is somewhat similar to what’s called a “lattice” or even the fabric of space-time itself.

He introduced the term Syntergy, a word he created by combining synthesis and energy. His theory suggests that when the human brain processes and decodes what we call reality, it can interact with this Lattice. By doing so, it may be possible to change space-time itself.

Grinberg believed we live in an informational matrix, which he called “the hologram.” In this hologram, we are not just passive observers—we can actively shape the reality we experience.

A key idea in the Syntergic Theory is that the more unified and coherent the activity in a person’s brain, the stronger and more effective their neuronal field becomes, which in turn could reduce gravitational forces in the immediate environment.

Grinberg suggested that what we perceive as space isn’t empty at all. Instead, it’s a dense network that can be changed or distorted. All forces and fields, like gravity, electromagnetism, and even thoughts or emotions, are just different ways the Lattice can be bent or shaped.

He called these distortions “Syntergic Bands.” Each level of consciousness, like being awake, dreaming, or in meditation, is tied to a particular Syntergic Band. The more coherent and unified the Lattice is, the higher the level of consciousness you can access.

In simple terms, a person who is calm, abstract in thought, and highly focused can supposedly alter the information present in the space around them, possibly even influencing gravitational effects. In contrast, someone who’s distracted or fragmented in thought creates a weaker field.

He explained that if a person has a highly “syntergic” brain, meaning one with strong internal coherence and connection between its parts, they can influence the hologram at will. This could allow them to perform acts that seem impossible according to known laws of physics, just like Pachita did with her healings.

Perception, according to Grinberg, is not a passive process. We don’t simply receive reality; we create it in partnership with the Lattice and our Neural Fields. What we see, hear, and feel is the product of our brains decoding or transforming the Lattice. The reality we experience is thus filtered through our level of consciousness, conditioning, and personal history.

Grinberg also drew parallels with ancient traditions. For example, in Buddhism, there’s the idea of “Sunyata,” or emptiness—that nothing exists alone and everything is interdependent. In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, there’s the belief that each part contains the whole, and all levels of reality are interconnected. Grinberg used these ideas to show that science and spirituality are not opposed, but can actually enrich each other.

He drew on the wisdom of Zen masters and mystical traditions, which speak about the “Big Mind”—a universal mind that includes everything, as opposed to the small, separate ego-mind. He questioned whether science could find a physiological basis for this Big Mind, suggesting that if space is just an illusion produced by our perception, and if individual minds are just local expressions of one unified consciousness, this implies there are real, measurable effects, such as brain aactivityexisting outside of the skull.

This idea also opens the door to exploring other phenomena like telepathy. Grinberg conducted experiments where two people, exposed to different stimuli but connected through meditation, showed synchronized brain activity, suggesting their minds were somehow linked beyond physical interaction.

His theory also overlaps with ideas like the law of attraction, the power of thought to shape reality, and the idea that language influences how we experience the world.

The most mysterious part of his theory is the suggestion that if our consciousness can affect this informational matrix, and if everything is interconnected through energy, whether atomic or mental, then we might not be living in ultimate reality. Instead, we could be inside a kind of simulation, a matrix, where our brain is capable of understanding its physical laws but not its true origin.

This idea leads to the concept of awakening: expanding consciousness enough to fully master the hologram. According to this view, if someone completely understood the matrix, they would essentially disappear from it, reaching a pure state in the real, higher reality.

So, why don’t we all experience the full reality of the Lattice? According to Grinberg, most people are “stuck” tuning into only one level of reality because of personal filters, history, and conditioning. If we could let go of these, we might experience reality as it truly is, limitless and interconnected.

Grinberg also suggested that shamans, mystics, and yogis can tap into different Syntergic Bands, explaining their unusual experiences and abilities, like telepathy or materializing objects.

To support these radical ideas, Dr. Grinberg conducted experiments measuring brain electrical activity (EEG) during moments of deep communication and meditation. He observed that when two people were in deep, empathic communication, their brainwave patterns—specifically the coherence or similarity between the left and right halves of their brains—became strongly synchronized.

In some sessions, especially when deep mutual understanding was present, the EEG patterns between the two people even began to reflect each other, as if their brains were in direct, nonverbal communion. When communication was weak, this synchrony was absent.

He also designed a technique to train people to stimulate this sense of unity, using biofeedback based on EEG coherence. When individuals achieved high levels of coherence in their brain activity, meaning their brain hemispheres were working in harmony, they reported feelings of inner unification, peace, and a dissolution of the usual separation between self and world.

This effect wasn’t easy to achieve: it required months of hard training, indicating that our usual fragmented mind is deeply ingrained.

Another fascinating experiment involved placing a small weight in a room shielded from all outside physical forces. Grinberg recorded the brain activity of people sitting nearby, instructing them to remain still and calm. He found that certain changes in their EEG coherence coincided with measurable changes in the weight, suggesting that their mental or energetic activity was having a physical effect on the environment, possibly even modifying gravitational forces. However, this effect was not easy to control or reproduce willingly, perhaps owing to the complexity and subtlety of the internal mental state required.

Underlying all of these scientific endeavors is the concept that space is not empty but is actually a matrix full of information, a kind of quantum field that underlies all physical reality.

Grinberg postulated that our perception of separation, of individuals and objects, is just a result of our brain decoding a limited amount of the immense information present in this field. If the brain could raise its coherence to the highest level, it might be able to interface with this fundamental field fully, leading to a direct perception of oneness or unity with all that exists.

Grinberg’s Syntergic Theory attempts to bridge science and spiritual wisdom, suggesting that consciousness is not just a private, isolated phenomenon inside each person, but part of a universal field. Through deep communication, meditation, and increased internal coherence, human beings can experience greater unity with themselves, with others, and with the universe itself.

Grinberg was never able to prove this theory completely. Just like his work on children’s extraocular vision (seeing without using the eyes) and telepathy, these studies were left unfinished. That’s because, at the most critical moment in his career, Dr. Jacobo Grinberg mysteriously disappeared.

1994 was a year of huge changes for Mexico. Carlos Salinas de Gortari was president, and on January 1, the country started a new chapter with the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, linking Mexico, the US, and Canada. The government promised it would bring an economic miracle, jobs, and progress for everyone.

But on that very first day, things took a wild turn. In the southern state of Chiapas, an armed group called the Zapatistas stormed towns and government buildings. Their goal? Justice and rights for Mexico’s indigenous people, who they believed were once again forgotten by policies like NAFTA.
The Zapatistas, led by Sub Comandante Marcos, became national heroes for many, and Dr. Jacobo Grinberg was among their most passionate supporters.

Dr. Grinberg wasn’t just an ordinary scientist. He marched in rallies, signed public letters, and even tried to connect the Zapatistas’ struggle to his studies in shamanism and the mysteries of the mind. Around this time, Grinberg dove deeper into the world of the supernatural. Some of his friends began to worry. Was he losing his grip on reality?

He started saying he felt watched and unsafe, even describing huge cosmic visions, like traveling through space in his mind, connecting with alien civilizations, and even believing he might have become a kind of god. Some wonder if constant use of hallucinogenic substances pushed him even further away from reality.

In the early 1990s, Grinberg befriended Carlos Castaneda, a famous but controversial writer who claimed to study shamanism and drug-induced visions. Castaneda was later criticized for making up his stories, but Grinberg admired his work for a time and even visited him with his second wife, María Teresa Mendoza López.

It’s rumored that Castaneda invited Grinberg to leave his university job and join his secretive group. Grinberg refused. Their relationship soured, and some of Grinberg’s friends would later speculate, without evidence, that Castaneda’s circle could have played a role in his vanishing.

As the end of 1994 approached, Grinberg seemed increasingly unstable and paranoid. He called his daughter. He said he was heading to Kathmandu, Nepal, for meditation, but airline records show he never left Mexico. Days before his birthday, he left messages saying his wife, Teresa, was persecuting him. By then, their marriage had become extremely troubled, full of jealousy and fights.

What happened? Was Teresa involved?

People close to Grinberg believed Teresa was pretending to be someone she wasn’t, that she might be dangerous, or that she was part of a group trying to control him. His brother remembers that Grinberg openly feared for his life in their last meeting. Friends insisted: Jacobo Grinberg would never have left his beloved daughter, his university job, or his responsibilities by choice.

Lizette admits she did not know Teresa well. Still, her limited interactions (including chance meetings and following her to Grinberg’s house for research purposes) were awkward, with Teresa reportedly displaying paranoia and anxiety. Jacobo himself described Teresa as someone with “powers,” referencing shamanic or magical abilities. Lizette expresses skepticism about paranormal powers, but acknowledges Grinberg’s fascination with such phenomena; he actively sought to study their scientific basis. Moreover, Teresa’s involvement in shamanic practices, particularly those involving trance-induced surgeries or “psychic surgeries, —placed her at the crossroads of science and mysticism, the terrain Grinberg himself navigated.

Lizette points out that while his quest was scientific, Grinberg always remained open to subjects dismissed by conventional research—extrasensory perception, telepathy, shamanic healing, and other phenomena viewed with skepticism by the mainstream scientific community. This approach earned him both admiration and criticism, making him something of an outsider and, perhaps, a target.

According to Ilan Stavans, a Jewish Mexican-American essayist, after Grinberg was reported missing, strange things happened. Teresa cashed one of his checks and gave conflicting stories about his whereabouts. Sometimes he was in Guadalajara, sometimes in Campeche, and sometimes supposed to be flying out to Nepal. Teresa was seen with a night watchman with a military background and later with a blonde woman, collecting her things from one of their houses. Eventually, Teresa herself disappeared forever.

Since that time, Grinberg has become more legend than man. In Spanish, the word for “disappeared”—desaparecido—isn’t the same as “reappeared”—aparecido, which means “ghost.” Grinberg became a legend, an apparition. Some of his followers believe he’s not gone, just hidden, waiting for the right time to return, to enlighten the world with secret knowledge.

His family remembers him with great love, seeing lessons in his courage and relentless search for truth. In Jewish tradition, there’s a legend about the 36 righteous people, the Lamed Vavniks, upon whom the fate of the world depends. Grinberg’s friends sometimes wondered: Could Jacobo have been one of these special souls?

In the last years of his life, Jacobo Grinberg’s mind soared beyond what most of us can imagine. Maybe he saw realities others couldn’t. Maybe he fell victim to his explorations. Maybe he was lost, or maybe he didn’t disappear at all, but simply crossed a border no one else could see.

Someone once tried to contact him using spiritual rituals, hoping for a sign he was alive or dead. The answer? Grinberg is “in bardo” — the Buddhist state between death and rebirth. Between worlds, between stories, between mysteries.

The story of Jacobo Grinberg has no neat ending. Mexico in 1994 was a place of turmoil and transformation, and Grinberg was swept away in its currents. Was his disappearance political? Personal? A matter of science, madness, or magic?

No one knows. But those who remember him say he taught us one thing above all: Reality is full of mysteries. Sometimes, the truest thing we can do is keep searching for answers.

by Vicky Verma at howandwhys.com on August 14, 2025