A word-of-mouth campaign, undeterred by reviews skeptical of the film's New Age underpinnings and leaps of scientific faith, has made it an unexpected hit among independent films. Box office returns of $8.3 million in mid-November put it among the top-grossing indies in recent years.

Filmmakers are already capitalizing on interest by readying a picture book for the holidays.

''What the Bleep'' weaves cartoon illustrations through interviews with Ivy League scientists and spiritual philosophers to suggests a new spirituality for the 21st century.

Its everyday relevance plays out through the soap opera story of Amanda, a photographer and divorcee (played by Marlee Matlin) who is unhappy with just about everything.

But it's the film's premise - that we, not a separate, judging God, create reality - that's spinning out the strongest reverberations.

Even mainstream Christians e-mailed their compliments, said producer William Arntz. ''We puzzled over that,'' he said. The 54-year-old former software engineer funded the film with some of the millions he made selling his company, AutoSys, during the dot-com boom.

''To think that one little planet in the whole Milky Way or one group of people has the whole franchise to heaven starts looking like the Middle Ages when the Earth was the center of the universe,'' said Arntz, who was raised a Lutheran and dabbled in Buddhism while living in San Francisco and commuting to San Jose.

''A lot of people have realized that's an idea that is really outdated.''

Perhaps the warrior Ramtha conveys the new concept best: ''There is no such thing as good or bad; there is no God waiting to punish you. Everyone is gods.''

Arntz and the film's two other producers are unabashed members of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, founded by JZ Knight, a deep-voiced Elke Sommers look-alike who appears in the film. A native of Roswell, N.M., who reportedly experienced psychic phenomena at an early age, she says she was visited in 1977 by Ramtha, an ancient warrior from Atlantis who proposed channeling his message through her, according to the University of Virginia's Religious Movements Homepage Project.

Arntz admits the intent of ''What the Bleep'' was to hit hard on what he called an ''old way of thinking'' - God as a separate being from humanity that must be cultivated, humored and obeyed.

The film takes us along with Amanda as she learns that matter, as shown by quantum physics, is not static but a continuum of possibilities. She comes to see that she can choose among them, shifting her brain chemistry from habitual pathways - and emotions.