Quantum mechanics and mysticism: An investigation of transformative experiences in Matrix Energetics seminars

This study examines transformative change in consciousness in selected individuals not engaged in other transformative spiritual practices, who have a profound experience while attending a Matrix Energetics (ME) seminar (exercising transformational and healing consciousness techniques based on quantum physics). When and if it occurs, the resulting shift in consciousness (which individuals describe as "becoming unzipped" or having a massive change in awareness) appears to support the idea of consciousness as a system near the edge of chaos. Responses of 11 participants to 2 custom questionnaires and 2 assessments---the Self-Expansiveness Level Form (SELF) and the Hartmann Boundary Questionnaire (BQ)---were analyzed using a blended method of grounded theory plus quantitative analysis. Grounded theory was used to derive an analytic grasp of participants' worldviews as expressed in custom questionnaires. Emergent themes were then correlated with numerical data from assessments that complemented and enriched the qualitative data and expanded the scope of the approach. Results indicate that a significant change does occur, and its characteristics are: (1) ME involves a transformative state change rather than a technique. (2) This state change is effortless. (3) Detachment is a requirement to experience the state change. (4) The state change has no limits. (5) What one focuses on expands. (6) The experience involves shared subconscious processes. Changes occurred typically over a 3 to 5 day seminar, supporting the notion that consciousness of these individuals was an autopoietic system near the edge of chaos. Descriptions of the new state of consciousness comply with descriptions of unity consciousness. Finally, quantum mechanics describes a world of possibilities previously unimaginable. Matrix Energetics practitioners take that description at face value and live in that world. This philosophic change dissolves the paradoxes of Cartesian dualism and creates a new awareness of the zero-point field as the force of the universe.