A Teacher
Jacobo Grinberg
Syntergic theory of consciousness
The transmission
Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum was born in Mexico City on 12 December 1946. He studied psychology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and then took a doctorate in psychophysiology at the Brain Research Institute in New York.
Returning to Mexico, he founded research laboratories at UNAM and the Universidad Anáhuac, and in 1987 inaugurated the National Institute for the Study of Consciousness (INPEC), where most of his investigations were carried out.
He was a prolific author, publishing technical papers in peer-reviewed journals alongside nearly fifty books spanning neuroscience, philosophy, and spiritual reflection. Grinberg developed what he called the “syntergic theory,” proposing that conscious experience arises from the interaction between the brain’s neuronal field and an underlying energetic “structure of space,” a lattice he believed the mind partly organises.
His best-known experiments concerned the “transferred potential,” in which the EEG of one meditating subject appeared to correlate with stimulation given to a paired, physically isolated subject, which he interpreted as evidence of direct brain-to-brain interaction without sensory contact.
His thinking was profoundly shaped by his studies of the Mexican folk healer Pachita, whose work he attempted to examine through scientific methods. On 8 December 1994 Grinberg was last seen in Mexico City; he then vanished, and despite investigations his fate remains unknown and the case unsolved.
What they gave
Syntergic theory: Offered a model in which consciousness is fundamental and the brain co-creates perceived reality by interacting with an underlying energetic lattice.
- Transferred-potential experiments: Designed EEG studies presented as a sincere experiment to detect non-local correlation between separated, meditating brains.
- Bridging science and shamanism: Studied the healer Pachita and Mexican shamanic practice as serious objects of consciousness research rather than mere folklore.
- A large research literature: Produced an extensive body of writing linking neurophysiology, perception, and metaphysical speculation about mind.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: the holographic and implicate-order ideas associated with Karl Pribram and David Bohm, his clinical encounters with the healer Pachita, and Mexican shamanic traditions.
- Taught / Influenced: later researchers in consciousness studies and proponents of non-local mind, for whom his transferred-potential work and unsolved disappearance became a touchstone.