UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Rabbit Hole

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Some people need to understand before they commit. That is valid. It is also not required. The library is downstairs. The booking is a door. You can use either, both, or neither.

The concept

A quantum encounter is a meeting that refuses to decide in advance what it is for. Two people set a container — or leave parts of the container open — and then inhabit it. The work draws on interpersonal neurobiology, contemplative practice, and the awkward literature of altered states, without asking you to join a church of any of them.

Physics is not being used as a proof. Coincidence is not being used as a method. If something in you organized itself around a sentence, a silence, or a glance, that is allowed to matter without being promoted into a law of the universe. The skeptical papers in the library are there so this page cannot become a sales brochure.

Sacramento is the first room. The larger name is an umbrella for regional facilitators later. For now there is one calendar, one human, and a booking form that will let you specify timing, duration, place, activity, and payment — or leave any of those to be determined. Determined by judgment. Not by a generator.


FAQ

What is a quantum encounter?

It is. A facilitated session in which two people meet without a treatment plan, and see what becomes available.

It is not. A protocol, a modality franchise, or a promise that the universe will rearrange itself for you.

It both is and is not. It borrows language from physics, contemplative traditions, and nervous-system work, while remaining an ordinary conversation in a room (or on a screen).

It neither is nor is not. The name is a finger pointing. The meeting is the thing, if there is a thing.

Is this therapy?

It is. Therapeutic in the old sense: tending, attending, making room.

It is not. Psychotherapy, counseling, or medical treatment. It does not diagnose, treat, or replace clinical care.

It both is and is not. People sometimes cry, reorganize, or feel a nervous system settle. That can happen in a kitchen too.

It neither is nor is not. If you need therapy, get therapy. This can sit beside that work. It cannot be that work.

Do I have to believe in quantum mysticism?

It is. Fine if you do. Metaphor has always been a way nervous systems metabolize the unsayable.

It is not. A requirement. Skepticism is welcome and, in the resource library, published on purpose.

It both is and is not. Some of the physics is real. Some of the popular physics-talk is not. Distinguishing them is part of the honesty of this project.

It neither is nor is not. Belief is not the admission ticket. Attention is.

What actually happens in a session?

It is. Whatever you specified: a time, a duration, a location, an activity, a payment. Those choices are locked.

It is not. A script. Anything you left open is determined by the facilitator in the moment — by judgment, not by a generator, a coin flip, or a “surprise me” gimmick.

It both is and is not. There may be talking. There may be silence. There may be a guided practice if that becomes appropriate and you have not medically ruled it out.

It neither is nor is not. The session is not a product you receive. It is a stretch of time two people agree to inhabit.

Why can I leave so many things unspecified?

It is. Because over-specifying a meeting can become a way of not meeting.

It is not. A trap, a test, or a randomizer. “Leave this to be determined” means a human will decide later, with you in mind.

It both is and is not. Structure and openness are both forms of care. You choose the ratio.

It neither is nor is not. If deciding feels like too much, leaving it open is a complete decision.

Are psychedelics involved?

It is. Possible that your own history with them will come up in conversation. The resource library includes that literature.

It is not. A drug session, a supply, a sit, or a clinical administration of any substance.

It both is and is not. The work is interested in the same territories those compounds sometimes open, without requiring them.

It neither is nor is not. If you are looking for a guided psychedelic session, this is the wrong door. If you are looking for a human encounter that can hold that material, it may not be.

What does it cost?

It is. $250 if you choose the fixed rate. Sliding scale $150–$350 if you choose that. Dana if you choose to offer. Or left open, to be settled with the facilitator.

It is not. A test of your spiritual sincerity. Pay in the way that lets you arrive without a story about the money running the meeting.

It both is and is not. Money is ordinary and it is also a form of attention.

It neither is nor is not. If cost is the barrier, say so. Leaving payment unspecified is allowed.

Who is this for?

It is. For people who can take responsibility for their own psyche in an unstructured meeting.

It is not. For someone in acute crisis, someone seeking emergency psychiatric care, or someone who needs a locked treatment plan.

It both is and is not. Many people arrive in a tender or transitional season. Tenderness is not the same as crisis.

It neither is nor is not. If the screening questions raise a flag, the booking pauses so a human can look. That pause is care, not rejection.

What if I am in crisis?

It is. Urgent. In the US, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

It is not. Something this booking form can hold. A yes to current thoughts of harming yourself or someone else will not complete a booking.

It both is and is not. You can still be seen as a person. This particular door will not open onto a session until you are safer.

It neither is nor is not. Crisis is not a moral failing. It is a reason to reach for the right resource, which this is not.

Why does the website look like that?

It is. On purpose. The front door is quiet. Behind it, the culture that usually sells “transformation” is allowed to look as garish as it is.

It is not. A usability error we forgot to fix, or a statement that the content is a joke.

It both is and is not. The FAQ is real. The Geocities clothing is theater. Both are the site.

It neither is nor is not. If you needed a professional brochure to trust a conversation, you probably needed a different conversation.


Resources

Interpersonal neurobiology

The Developing Mind

Daniel J. Siegel · 2020

scholarly

Mind is portrayed as an embodied and relational process, not a brain in a jar — useful and also easy to overclaim.

Citation — URL not yet linked

The Polyvagal Theory

Stephen W. Porges · 2011

clinical

Maps safety and social engagement onto autonomic states; widely used in trauma work, and widely stretched beyond the data.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Polyvagal theory: a critical appraisal

Paul Grossman · 2023

skeptical

Argues that core physiological claims of polyvagal theory do not hold up; included here so the library is not a fan site.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self

Allan N. Schore · 1994

scholarly

Early relational experience shapes right-brain regulation; dense, clinical, not a workshop slogan.

Citation — URL not yet linked

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk · 2014

clinical

Popular case that traumatic memory lives in body and nervous system; influential, uneven as science, still a cultural landmark.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions

Giacomo Rizzolatti et al. · 1995

empirical

Mirror-neuron findings that later self-help writing inflated into instant empathy hardware.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Oxytocin and social affiliation in humans

Ruth Feldman · 2012

scholarly

Reviews hormone-and-bond research without pretending a hug is a protocol.

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Trauma and the Body

Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton, Clare Pain · 2010

clinical

Sensorimotor psychotherapy as a disciplined way to work with posture, gesture, and interrupted action.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Vajrayana Buddhism

Buddhist Saints in India

Reginald A. Ray · 1994

scholarly

Historical texture for tantric figures rather than Instagram lineage.

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Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Chögyam Trungpa · 2002

experiential

Classic warning that spiritual identity can be another costume the ego wears.

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Dakini's Warm Breath

Judith Simmer-Brown · 2013

scholarly

Reads dakini as wisdom display, not a mascot for exoticism.

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The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

Georges Dreyfus · 2005

scholarly

Geluk debate training as a living epistemology, not mystique.

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An Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice

Ngawang Dhargyey · 1998

mixed

Practical lamrim counsel on motivation, refuge, and the long game of practice.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Zen Buddhism

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Shunryu Suzuki · 1970

experiential

Beginner’s mind as a stance, not a brand; still the cleanest English-language doorway.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Dōgen (trans. Tanahashi) · 2006

scholarly

Uji and practice-realization refuse the idea that awakening is a future product.

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The Mind of Clover

Robert Aitken · 1974

experiential

Precepts as lived ethics rather than spiritual interior decorating.

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Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism

Dale S. Wright · 2008

scholarly

Puts Zen claims next to Western philosophy without flattening either.

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Quantum physics

Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes

Max Tegmark · 2010

scholarly

Calculates why warm, wet brains are hostile to the long-lived coherence some quantum-mind stories need.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics

David J. Griffiths, Darrell F. Schroeter · 2012

scholarly

Actual quantum mechanics: amplitudes, operators, measurement — the unromantic baseline.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics

John S. Bell · 1989

scholarly

Bell’s theorem without the conference-circuit mysticism that later attached to it.

Citation — URL not yet linked

The Quantum Story

Jim Baggott · 2011

journalistic

A history of the theory as a human argument, not a revelation.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins

Hensen et al. · 2015

empirical

Experimental confirmation that local hidden-variable stories have a bad decade.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Quantum mysticism

The Tao of Physics

Fritjof Capra · 1975

journalistic

The template for East-meets-quantum popular writing; historically important and scientifically loose.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Quantum Gods

Victor J. Stenger · 2010

skeptical

A physicist’s demolition of quantum-woo as an explanation of consciousness or prayer.

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The Emperor's New Mind

Roger Penrose · 1989

scholarly

Serious, controversial argument that mind is not a classical computer; not a permission slip for crystals.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Consciousness in the universe: Orch OR theory

Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose · 2004

mixed

Microtubule-orchestrated objective reduction — speculative, specific, and often straw-manned in both directions.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Psilocybin

Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences

Roland R. Griffiths et al. · 2006

empirical

Johns Hopkins study that reopened legal research into psilocybin and meaning.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression

Robin Carhart-Harris et al. · 2016

empirical

Early clinical signal with small samples and very large headlines.

Citation — URL not yet linked

How to Change Your Mind

Michael Pollan · 2018

journalistic

The book that moved psychedelics from counterculture to book-club; vivid, not a methods paper.

Citation — URL not yet linked

The Road to Eleusis

R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Carl A. P. Ruck · 2003

scholarly

Argues a psychedelic kykeon at Eleusis; influential speculation, not settled archaeology.

Citation — URL not yet linked

DMT

Dose-response study of N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans

Rick Strassman · 1994

empirical

The modern clinical description of DMT phenomenology under medical watch.

Citation — URL not yet linked

DMT: The Spirit Molecule

Rick Strassman · 2001

experiential

Same data, more metaphysics; keep the study and the memoir in separate hands.

Citation — URL not yet linked

DMT models the near-death experience

Christopher Timmermann et al. · 2019

empirical

Suggests phenomenological overlap, not a proof of an afterlife.

Citation — URL not yet linked

LSD

LSD: My Problem Child

Albert Hofmann · 1980

experiential

The inventor’s own account: discovery, hope, and the political wreckage that followed.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Neural correlates of the LSD experience

Robin Carhart-Harris et al. · 2016

empirical

Imaging work on network disintegration and the felt sense of ‘ego dissolution’.

Citation — URL not yet linked

LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety

Peter Gasser et al. · 2014

clinical

Small Swiss trial that helped restart European LSD research.

Citation — URL not yet linked

New Age

The Aquarian Conspiracy

Marilyn Ferguson · 1980

journalistic

Period document of the consciousness-culture that still supplies half the internet’s metaphors.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Why People Believe Weird Things

Michael Shermer · 1995

skeptical

A map of cognitive habits that make vague cosmic claims feel like knowledge.

Citation — URL not yet linked

New Age Religion and Western Culture

Wouter J. Hanegraaff · 2007

scholarly

Treats New Age as a real religious current with a history, not a punchline.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Randomness

Fooled by Randomness

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 2002

scholarly

How narrative after the fact disguises luck as skill — including spiritual luck.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Belief in the law of small numbers

Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman · 1971

scholarly

The mind over-reads pattern in thin data; coincidence is not a methodology.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Carl Jung (with Wolfgang Pauli commentary in related essays) · 1972

mixed

The modern source-text for meaningful coincidence; psychologically rich, causally unproven.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Power, memory, and critique

Creating false memories

Elizabeth F. Loftus · 1997

skeptical

Memory is reconstructive. Facilitators who ‘uncover’ trauma on a timetable should be terrified of this paper.

Citation — URL not yet linked

The new old problem of psychedelic exceptionalism

Jules Evans · 2019

scholarly

Charisma, altered states, and weak accountability are an old cult pattern in new clinical clothes.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Critiques of facilitator power in psychedelic therapy

Will Hall et al. / Mad in America reporting · 2020

journalistic

Documents boundary violations and the way ‘sacred’ language can disable ordinary consent.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Sea salps

Hydrodynamic advantages of swimming by salp chains

Kelly R. Sutherland, Daniel Weihs · 2014

empirical

Colonial tunicates that pulse as one body — a literal image of coupled individuals, not a metaphor you have to believe.

Citation — URL not yet linked

Peacocks

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Charles Darwin · 1871

scholarly

The peacock’s tail as sexual selection: beauty as costly signal, not proof of a cosmic artist.

Citation — URL not yet linked

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