Brief History of the Lightning Path

The Lightning Path (LP) emerged in the early 2000s as the consequence of a series of powerful mystical experiences experienced by me, Mike Sosteric (Sosteric, 2022). It began as a simple attempt to understand these powerful, healing (Miller, 2004), and ubiquitous human experiences. As it grew over the course of two and a half decades, it finally evolved into what we might want to call a “Knowledge System,” a system of interrelated resources designed not only to help demystify and understand these experiences and their implications, but to contextualize them in a larger rubric of human development and human potential, and to support and encourage them.

Recently, I’ve started calling it all a Human Development Framework, a complete system of knowledge designed to clear misunderstanding and confusion and help activate full human potential. This framework pulls from my own mystical explorations, classical religious concepts, contemporary trauma science, humanistic and (to a lesser extent) transpersonal psychology, neurology, biology, psychedelic research, and Marxist-inspired critiques of ideology and class in order to provide a complete-ish understanding of mystical experience (a relatively complete list of references is available here). Over time, all this has evolved into the Lightning Path Human Development Framework (LPHDF), encompassing personal healing, decolonial critique, and collective liberation.

The LP is still in development and still has quite a few rough edges, but you can have a look around if you like. A list of available entry points is provided on the Welcome Page.

References

Dossey, Larry. “Nonlocal Mind: A (Fairly) Brief History of the Term.” Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing 11, no. 2 (2015): 89–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2014.12.001.

Elkins, David. “Why Humanistic Psychology Lost Its Power and Influence in American Psychology.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 49, no. 1 (2009): 267–91. https://www.lightningpath.org/readings/elkins-humanistic-murder.pdf.

Miller, William R. “The Phenomenon of Quantum Change.” Journal of Clinical Psychology 60, no. 5 (2004): 453–60. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20000.

Sosteric, Mike (2022). Connection 100 – An Auto-Ethnography of My (Mystical) Connection Experiences.” Religions 13, no. 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100993.