Privacy Policy – SHOCKmetaphysics

SHOCKMETAPHYSICS.COM

Forensic Research in Africana Phenomenology and the Trinity of Black Trauma

Effective Date: August 30, 2026

Site Owner / Data Controller: Rev. Dr. Philippe SHOCK Matthews, operating as SHOCKmetaphysics

This Privacy Policy describes how SHOCKmetaphysics.com ("SHOCKmetaphysics," "the Site," "we," "us," or "our"), the primary online platform of Rev. Dr. Philippe SHOCK Matthews, collects, uses, discloses, and safeguards information in connection with your use of the Site, your correspondence with us, and your interaction with services linked from the Site, including the SHOCK Method™ Discovery Call, the ShockTraumaFreeWebinar registration funnel, BlackLoveGPT, and our affiliated publications, journals, and media channels. It applies wherever you access SHOCKmetaphysics.com, regardless of the device you use.

Please read this Policy carefully. By visiting the Site, submitting information through a form, registering for a webinar or Discovery Call, subscribing to our list, or otherwise interacting with SHOCKmetaphysics.com, you acknowledge that you have read and understood the practices described here. If you do not agree with this Policy, please discontinue use of the Site.

1. Scope of This Policy

This Policy governs SHOCKmetaphysics.com and any subdomains we operate. It does not govern the practices of third-party platforms that we use, link to, or embed content from — including but not limited to Gumroad, Patreon, Substack, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Academia.edu, Amazon, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. When you leave SHOCKmetaphysics.com to visit, register with, or transact on any of those platforms, that platform’s own privacy policy and terms govern the information you provide there. We encourage you to review those policies before sharing personal information with any linked or embedded service.

This Policy also does not apply to information you share with Rev. Dr. Matthews or his team offline (in person, by phone, or through private correspondence outside the Site), which is addressed separately under any service agreement, intake form, or informed-consent document associated with that engagement.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

We collect information that you choose to submit to us, including when you:

Complete the Contact form or send us an email;
Register for the SHOCK Trauma Free Webinar or any future webinar, workshop, or masterclass;
Book a SHOCK Method™ Discovery Call through our Gumroad booking link;
Subscribe to our email list, newsletter, or Substack publication;
Submit a testimonial, comment, guest inquiry, media request, or speaking request;
Apply to a partnership, collaboration, consulting, or affiliate opportunity; or
Correspond with us about research, publications, or the Africana Phenomenology Research Journal.

This information may include your name, email address, phone number, organization or affiliation, the content of your message, and any other details you choose to include. We use it to respond to you, to fulfill the specific request you have made (such as confirming a webinar seat or a Discovery Call), and to maintain a record of relevant correspondence.

Please do not send us passwords, payment card numbers, government identification numbers, or protected health information through ordinary email or an unencrypted web form. SHOCKmetaphysics.com is an educational and research platform; it is not a secure clinical patient portal, and email is not an appropriate channel for sensitive medical or mental-health records.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

As is standard for most websites, our hosting and security infrastructure automatically processes certain technical information whenever you visit the Site, including your IP address, approximate geographic location derived from that address, browser type and version, device and operating system, referring and exit pages, pages viewed, the date and time of your visit, and similar log and diagnostic data. This information is used to deliver the Site to your device, maintain security, prevent abuse, diagnose technical problems, and understand aggregate usage patterns. It is not intended to identify you personally, although in combination with other data it could be capable of doing so in rare cases.

The Site also uses cookies and comparable technologies, described in Section 4 below.

2.3 Information From Third-Party and Embedded Services

Certain pages on the Site embed content — most commonly YouTube videos — from third-party providers. Loading an embedded player can allow that provider to set cookies or receive technical information about your browser, particularly if you are logged into an account with that provider. Where available, we favor privacy-conscious embed settings, but we do not control the underlying data practices of embedded providers.

If a third-party platform (for example, Gumroad, Patreon, or Substack) shares limited information with us in connection with a booking, purchase, subscription, or pledge you have made — such as your name, email address, and transaction status — we use that information consistently with the purposes described in this Policy and in accordance with any restrictions imposed by that platform.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information described above for the following purposes:

To respond to inquiries, messages, and requests submitted through the Site;
To register you for a webinar, confirm a Discovery Call, or deliver a requested resource, download, or publication;
To send confirmations, reminders, and, where you have opted in, newsletters or updates about research, books, webinars, and the SHOCK Method™;
To operate, secure, maintain, and improve the Site, including diagnosing errors and preventing fraud or abuse;
To understand, in aggregate, how visitors use the Site so that content, navigation, and resources can be improved;
To maintain records of professional, academic, media, and community correspondence; and
To comply with applicable law, respond to lawful requests, and protect the rights, property, and safety of SHOCKmetaphysics, its visitors, and the public.

We do not use information submitted through the Site to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects, and we do not use the content of your personal correspondence to train any AI model that we control.

4. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Cookies are small text files placed on your device by a website or by content embedded within it. SHOCKmetaphysics.com, which runs on WordPress and is hosted by HostGator, may use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:

Category	Purpose	Examples on This Site
Strictly necessary	Required for basic site functionality and security	Session handling, security and firewall functions, form submission
Functional	Remember settings and improve usability	Display preferences, cookie-notice acknowledgment
Analytics	Understand aggregate visitor behavior	Metricool audience measurement (see Section 5)
Third-party / embedded	Set by embedded content or linked services	YouTube video embeds; social share buttons

You can control or delete cookies through your browser settings, and most browsers let you block cookies from specific sites or all sites. Blocking cookies may affect how portions of the Site — particularly embedded video and interactive elements — function. Because cookie-consent and blocking mechanisms vary by browser and by region, we encourage you to consult your browser’s help documentation for current instructions.

5. Analytics

We use Metricool as our website and social-media analytics integration. Depending on its configuration and your interaction with the Site, Metricool may process information such as pages visited, referral source, device type, and approximate location to help us understand audience size and engagement in the aggregate. We do not use analytics data to build individual profiles for marketing to third parties, and we do not sell analytics data. If you would like details about the analytics settings currently enabled on the Site, contact us using the information in Section 14.

6. Embedded Content and Links to Third-Party Services

The Site contains embedded YouTube videos and hyperlinks to a range of external platforms central to our work, including Gumroad (Discovery Call booking and digital products), Patreon (membership support), Substack (newsletter and long-form writing), Amazon (books and media), Academia.edu (research publications), BlackLoveGPT, ChatGPT, and our social media channels (YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and our Facebook Group). Visiting an embed or following a link takes you to a service we do not control. A booking, purchase, subscription, pledge, or AI conversation completed on one of those platforms is governed entirely by that platform’s own privacy policy and terms of service — not by this Policy. We encourage you to review the applicable privacy notice before entering personal information on any linked platform. The presence of a link on SHOCKmetaphysics.com is not an assurance that the destination site meets any particular privacy or security standard, and it does not mean that every listed provider receives information about you merely because you visited our Site.

7. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share information in the following limited circumstances:

With service providers who help us operate the Site and our correspondence — for example, hosting (HostGator), website software (WordPress and its plugins), email delivery, and analytics (Metricool) — solely to perform those functions on our behalf;
When required to comply with a valid legal process, subpoena, or governmental request, or to establish or exercise a legal claim or defense;
To protect the rights, property, safety, or security of SHOCKmetaphysics, our visitors, or the public, including to investigate or prevent fraud, abuse, or unlawful activity;
In connection with a bona fide business transition, such as a change in the structure of SHOCKmetaphysics or Global Care and Wellness, in which case the receiving party would be bound by materially similar privacy commitments; or
With your direction or consent, for a purpose you have specifically requested.

8. Data Retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected, to maintain accurate business, academic, and correspondence records, to comply with applicable legal, tax, or accounting obligations, and to resolve disputes. Retention periods vary depending on the nature of the information — for example, a routine media inquiry may be retained for a shorter period than records connected to an ongoing professional or research relationship. When information is no longer needed for these purposes, we take reasonable steps to delete, de-identify, or securely archive it.

9. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards appropriate to a research, education, and media platform of this size, including working with a reputable hosting provider and applying access controls to Site administration. However, no website, email system, or online platform can guarantee absolute security, and we cannot promise that information you transmit to us will never be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by a breach of any safeguard. You transmit information to us, and we transmit information to you, at your own risk. We ask that you never use email or an ordinary web form to send passwords, financial account numbers, government identification numbers, or protected health or clinical information.

10. Children’s Privacy

SHOCKmetaphysics.com is intended for a general adult audience and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13, and our webinar, Discovery Call, and consulting services are designed for adult participants. If you believe that a child has provided us with personal information without appropriate parental or guardian consent, please contact us using the information in Section 14 so that we can investigate and, where appropriate, delete that information.

11. Sensitive Information and a Note on Health-Related Content

The educational, research, and counseling-adjacent content on SHOCKmetaphysics.com addresses trauma, mental health, and related lived experience. If you choose to disclose sensitive personal experiences — including details relating to trauma history, mental health, or medical circumstances — in a message, webinar registration, testimonial, or Discovery Call, we treat that information with particular care and use it only for the purpose you intended (for example, tailoring a requested consultation). We strongly discourage sending detailed clinical or medical records by email or web form, and we ask that you not submit information you would consider a medical or psychiatric emergency through the Site. The Site is not a crisis service; if you are experiencing a mental health emergency, please contact your local emergency number or a crisis line in your area.

12. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to know what personal information we hold about you, to request a copy of it, to request that we correct inaccurate information, to request that we delete it, and to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the information in Section 14. We will respond within a reasonable time and may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. Some information may be exempt from deletion or correction where retention is required for legal, contractual, security, or research-integrity purposes (for example, maintaining the record of a peer-reviewed publication).

12.1 California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act ("CCPA"), gives you specific rights described below. In the preceding twelve months, the categories of personal information we have collected through the Site fall within the following CCPA categories:

CCPA Category	Collected?	Source
Identifiers (name, email, IP address)	Yes	Forms, webinar/Discovery Call registration, log data
Commercial information (services requested)	Yes	Discovery Call and webinar registration
Internet/network activity (browsing, analytics)	Yes	Cookies, Metricool analytics, log data
Geolocation (approximate, from IP)	Yes	Log data
Sensitive personal information (health-related disclosures you volunteer)	Only if you provide it	Messages, registrations, or correspondence you submit
Protected classification, biometric, financial account, or precise geolocation data	No	Not collected

We do not sell or share (as "share" is defined under the CPRA for cross-context behavioral advertising) personal information, and we have not done so in the preceding twelve months. California residents may nonetheless exercise the following rights by contacting us:

Right to Know — the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, the sources, the purposes, and the categories of third parties with whom it has been shared;
Right to Delete — deletion of personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain legal exceptions;
Right to Correct — correction of inaccurate personal information;
Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information — where you have volunteered sensitive information (such as health-related disclosures), you may ask us to limit its use to what is necessary to provide the service you requested;
Right to Opt Out of Sale or Sharing — not currently applicable, as we do not sell or share personal information; and
Right to Non-Discrimination — we will not deny goods or services, charge different prices, or provide a different level of quality because you exercised a CCPA right.

You may designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf; we may require proof of the agent’s authorization and verification of your identity before responding.

12.2 Visitors in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Other Jurisdictions

If you are located in a jurisdiction that recognizes a data-protection framework such as the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation, we process personal information on the basis of your consent (for example, when you opt in to a newsletter), our legitimate interest in operating and securing an educational and research website, and, where applicable, the steps necessary to respond to your request or provide a service you asked for. You may have additional rights under your local law, including the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority. Because SHOCKmetaphysics is a U.S.-based individual research and educational platform, information collected through the Site is generally processed and stored in the United States.

13. Do Not Track Signals

Some browsers offer a "Do Not Track" signal. Because there is no single, universally accepted standard for how websites should respond to such signals, SHOCKmetaphysics.com does not currently alter its data-collection practices specifically in response to a browser’s Do Not Track signal, although you can still limit tracking through the cookie and browser controls described in Section 4.

14. Contact Us

Questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy, or requests to exercise a privacy right described above, may be directed to:

Rev. Dr. Philippe SHOCK Matthews

SHOCKmetaphysics

Email: shockmetaphysics@gmail.com

We may need to verify your identity before responding to a request that involves accessing, correcting, or deleting personal information.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, the services we use, or applicable law. When we make changes, we will revise the "Effective Date" above. We encourage you to review this Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Site after a revised Policy is posted constitutes your acknowledgment of the updated terms.

16. Related Policies

This Privacy Policy should be read together with our Terms of Use and our Educational & AI Disclaimer, both available on SHOCKmetaphysics.com, which together govern your use of the Site, including important limitations on the educational, spiritual, and AI-assisted content we provide.