Foundations for a New Theory of Everything — Part III. Belief, Confidence, Neural Coherence and Interconnectedness

 

The main thesis of this series of articles is that everything in our universe is interconnected, including our minds, which are capable of producing some extraordinary phenomena thanks to that interconnection. This interconnection bears some resemblance to the phenomenon known in Physics as Quantum Entanglement, although it is clearly distinct from it. The effects of that interconnection may be far more profound and significant than most people think.

The concept of an interconnected universe is shared by many ancient spiritual traditions, appearing under different names, such as Dao in Daoism, Brahman in Hinduism, Sunyata in Budhism, Logos in ancient Greek philosophy, and Ein Sof in Jewish Mysticism. In modern times, it is often referred to as The Universal Consciousness or simply The Matrix. For simplicity, and to remove any esoteric connotation, we will use the last term. This article will explore the role of our minds within the Matrix.

A previous article discussed the fact that, contrary to common belief, one does not need to be in a trance to perform psi efficiently. However, the question of how best to enhance psychic abilities remained open. This question is closely related to why some individuals appear to be more naturally gifted than others. Some ideas were already outlined in another article, although they were only partially developed.

It was already hinted there that belief is fundamental for psychic performance, and the following question was raised: how can one come to believe in the “impossible,” especially after a lifetime of social conditioning that tends to eliminate any trace of doubt regarding the possibility of magic’s existence? Some clues that were suggested include hypnosis, meditation, and participation in group activities where such phenomena are demonstrated by others.

Since then, the author, through his own exploration of psychic phenomena, has not only gathered further evidence for the importance of belief and confidence in this field, but has also come to the conclusion that they are truly fundamental.

 

Suggestibility and Hypnosis

Suggestibility can induce one to believe in the seemingly impossible and attempt to act in ways that are normally considered unfeasible or absurd. This turns out to be essential for the success of psychic tests.

The effect of hypnosis on psychic skills has been extensively studied. Psychics considered "gifted" seem to be ordinary individuals with heightened hypnotic susceptibility who have developed enough interest in psychic phenomena to overcome prejudices and experiment with them. Many mediums from the late 19th and early 20th century, such as Eusapia Paladino, Eva Carriere, and Leonora Piper, reportedly performed their feats under hypnosis (typically induced by another person). More recently, the gifted telekinetic phenomenon Nina Kulagina was skilled in autohypnosis, a technique she learned to alleviate certain health issues.

But what does “hypnotic susceptibility” or suggestibility mean? What goes on in the minds of such people? This subject has been extensively studied, and a substantial body of information is available.

Highly suggestible people tend to transform ideas into subjectively real experiences, voluntarily modifying what they perceive. They do this through enhanced mental imagery (imagination) and deep absorption in internal experiences. This makes it possible for an idea or suggestion to directly influence their perceptual or motor processes. They can experience intense sensations of heat, cold, pain, pleasure, rigidity, smell, etc., in response to imagined stimuli. It is not just a matter of sensations; their bodies may respond as if the stimuli were real. People under hypnosis can even report visual and auditory hallucinations, forget their names or specific information, completely ignore pain, etc. Most people are suggestible to some degree and can become more suggestible with practice. These phenomena are very well known and accepted by mainstream science.

Structurally, highly hypnotizable brains have been found to exhibit increased connectivity between control and imagination networks (in particular the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex).

 

Belief, Confidence and Neural Coherence

If we look at thesaurus definitions of belief and confidence, we notice that they overlap. Here are two of these definitions (by Cambridge):

• Belief: the feeling of being certain that something exists or is true.

• Confidence: the quality of being certain of your own ability to do things well.

In practice, the two terms are similar, except that belief has a more affective, feeling-based nuance, while confidence is rather a form of certainty oriented toward action and ability. Moreover, confidence has a stronger quantifiable and performance-related aspect, which is essential for a more scientific treatment.

Both strong belief and self-confidence have been found to correlate with enhanced connectivity and coordinated action between multiple parts of the brain, beyond the connections enhanced by hypnosis. Brainwaves, which are electrical oscillations, synchronize and resonate, and large-scale brain activity can become more integrated and coherent. The brain becomes a resonator with a predominant frequency, and different parts of it oscillate coherently, i.e. in phase, so that resonant amplification may occur. Even if there is more than one frequency, the phases of the waves can become synchronized and behave as harmonics. The overall system becomes more unified, noise is reduced, and oscillatory amplitude can be strongly magnified.

It is worth mentioning that coherence, when taken to an extreme in some parts of the brain, may excessively amplify certain mental processes and has been associated with psychiatric conditions. For example, excessive coherence in fronto-limbic networks has been linked to anxiety disorders, in sensory areas to autism spectrum disorder, in the default mode network to depression, and in the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and striatum to obsessive-compulsive disorder.

 

Meditation

Advanced qigong masters highlight the importance of cultivating confidence and equilibrium in order to achieve success with internal energy development. Many of the techniques for energy cultivation involve some form of meditation.

Meditation also produces coherence, but it is known to have extremely beneficial effects, unlike the pathologies mentioned earlier. It improves attention and memory, reduces anxiety, and when practiced diligently over long periods may lead to sensations of extreme happiness, bliss, love, heightened awareness, harmony, and union with the universe. All these experiences are related to a mode with flexible, controllable (rather than rigid) coherence, typically with a frequency in the gamma band (32–100 Hz). This brain operation mode has a higher frequency than most others, starting with delta (0.1 Hz) and passing through theta, mu, SMR, alpha, and beta.

Enhanced networks include the frontal regions, responsible for attention and executive control, and the fronto-parietal networks supporting sustained focus. There is also enhanced fronto-limbic connectivity, corresponding to improved emotion regulation. Enhanced coherence is observed also in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, as in hypnosis and self-hypnosis as mentioned earlier.

On the other hand, signal coherence and amplitudes are diminished in the medial frontoparietal network, also called the default mode network (DMN). Part of the posterior parietal cortex belonging to this network is responsible for processing body location in space. Another part is the lateral temporal cortex, responsible for narrative thinking, conceptual elaboration, and internal storytelling. The DMN is also involved in self-awareness and projection into the future, which helps explain why one of the well-known effects of meditation is a reduction in ego-related processing. Other downregulated regions include the amygdala, responsible for emotional reactivity, and the basal ganglia loops, related to automatic behavioral routines and cognitive patterns.

Mexican psychologist Jacobo Grinberg studied brain coherence (which he termed “syntergy”) in the early 1980s and suggested that such high coherence may enhance coupling between minds and with the Matrix.

 

Peripheral Nervous System Coherence

Many qigong practitioners can generate high-voltage electricity, in ways similar to some fish. The author has personally experienced strong electrical jolts from Master Senteris’ hands. A measurement of the electric potential at the skin of the Master using an electrostatic voltmeter revealed a maximum voltage of 20 kV! Electric fish possess specialized electricity-generating organs containing cells called electrocytes, which are essentially modified neurons producing low voltages (several hundred millivolts per cell). High-voltage pulses are generated through the synchronous discharge of many electrocytes connected in series, controlled by a pacemaker nucleus in the brain.

Apparently, qigong practitioners engage analogous mechanisms involving synchronized, i.e. coherent, activity in parts of the peripheral nervous system. They achieve this through daily practices typically involving narrow but shifting attention within the body, often in a looping or circulating manner. The cultivation process appears to be the result of a positive feedback loop: the more one focuses on a given area, the more it is felt, and the stronger the associated neural activity becomes, which in turn reinforces the sensation. There is a frequently cited old Chinese expression that summarizes this idea: “Qi goes where the mind goes.”

Personal experience

The author, in his own telekinesis training, reports experiencing on a daily basis the effect of confidence and belief on perceived psychic performance. He has reached the conclusion that the relationship is approximately quantitative, similarly to reports from other practitioners. For example, stronger confidence seems to correlate with faster spinning of a psi wheel, or with the ability to influence heavier objects. However, similar effects may be observed across a wide range of loads, which suggests that belief may be a more determining factor than physical parameters such as weight, and that the effective upper limit may be constrained primarily by belief itself.

Conversely, even a subtle degree of doubt can significantly reduce or fully inhibit observable effects, especially near perceived performance limits. This raises the question of whether there could be a more fundamental relationship between belief and “vital energy,” such as a direct proportionality between them.

Quantifying coherence

How can neural coherence be quantified? Neural network theory commonly uses several measures of synchrony, such as spectral coherence, phase-locking value, and Kuramoto’s order parameter. These measures are often complemented by entropy- or complexity-based metrics. In fact, some physicalist theories of consciousness combine coherence and complexity measures, for example using the Kuramoto parameter together with phase entropy.

Putting it all together

From this perspective, belief and confidence may be viewed as key factors in certain anomalous or fringe phenomena, and in neurological terms they could correspond to increased coherence in some brain networks together with reduced activity in others. Some individuals have a natural tendency to transform ideas into vivid subjective experiences due to enhanced connectivity and coordination between control and imagination networks. These individuals are often described as more “gifted” in psychic contexts.

However, these skills are trainable, as evidenced by yoga and qigong traditions that use long-standing structured methods. These practices are primarily meditative and may facilitate voluntary regulation of neural states, including those related to attention and self-suggestion, potentially reducing cognitive noise and strengthening focused mental states.

In highly trained qigong practitioners, this coherence reaches a superior level. In typical conditions, neural coherence does not produce large measurable electrical outputs in the peripheral nervous system. However, in trained practitioners, high voltages are produced throughout the entire nervous system due to extremely high levels of coherence. That allows them to perform seemingly impossible feats, often discarded as scam, especially when observed indirectly by lay persons.

Finally, confidence or belief—if it could be meaningfully quantified through combined coherence and entropy metrics—might serve as a proxy variable for “psychic strength,” i.e. the extent to which a mind can influence perceived physical outcomes.                           

  

Published: 2026-02-22