User:Michael

Hi there. My name is Mike Sosteric and I, with some help am the creator of the Lightning Path Human Development Framework, which, if you don't already know, is a modern Human Development Framework (HDF) that I've been slowly piecing together, an hour or two (sometimes five or more) every day, since way back in 2003.

It didn't start out like this of course. I didn't wake up one morning and say "I'm gonna build an HDF." It started with a Connection Experience way back in 2003. This turned into an uninterrupted information stream where "ideas came in an uninterrupted stream and the only difficulty I had was to hold them fast.", which continued as a "mystical" ethnographic study, which turned into a more systemic exploration which slowly, over the course of a couple of decades, turned into this still incomplete blob of clay, the Lightning Path Human Development Framework (LPHDF) or just Lightning Path (LP) for short. You can read a bit more about it in my article "Connection 100: An Autoethnography of My (Mystical) Connection Experiences." There's also some notes in LP Workbook Seven, currently still in draft form.

I know it sounds crazy, but there it is. The LP-HDF is still in development, and probably will be for another twenty years, but a substantial chunk exists as concepts, ideas, notes, and theory in this SpiritWiki, and I'm developing curriculum to put it all together over here at the LP Patreon.

If you want, you can explore the SW, but there's a lot here and it might be overwhelming to start. If so, head over to the LP Patreon and go through the Introduction to the Lightning Path and Foundational unit. That will give you a base of understanding from which you can launch your metaphorical ascent.

My Qualifications

If you want to know why I'm qualified to do this.

1. Associate Professor Sociology, Athabasca University.
2. Close to 30 years experience in post-secondary education
3. Close to 20 years of regular, daily Connection Practice
4. Over twenty-years working on conceptualizing and refining my understanding of the sociology and psychology of Human Development.
5. The privilege and good fortune to be able to sit down every day for a few hours and read, research, explore, and write.
6. The discipline and determination to figure "it" out,

Theoretical Challenges

I should say that putting this all together, creating this SpiritWiki and organizing the various "frameworks" into a coherent knowledge system, has been a bit of a challenge.

Nomenclature Confusion

The biggest challenge, particularly when it comes to sorting out this planet's spiritual knowledge, is Nomenclature Confusion which is the ridiculous proliferation of terms used to describe basic psychological/spiritual concepts. Consider my concept of the Spiritual Ego which is syncretic with over 50 terms for over a dozen traditions and disciplines. It is hard to make meaningful sense of things when so many terms have been coined over the centuries to point to the same thing.

Dilettantes

Another problem is spiritual and scholarly dilettantes — individuals who may have had a single Connection Experience, or perhaps two, and who, without adequate reflection, guidance, or integration, now present themselves as enlightened guides or experts. Others read a few "spiritual" books or dabble in esoteric traditions and then confuse borrowed knowledge with authentic wisdom derived from systemic exploration and analysis of connection experience. With minimal real-world transformation, healing, or alignment work, they presume themselves capable of leading others through deep processes of awakening.

This superficial engagement with Connection and Spirit undermines authentic spiritual growth. These individuals may promote distorted, incomplete, or commodified spiritual narratives that are disconnected from the grounded, healing-centered, and revolutionary framework required for real transformation. Rather than encouraging healing, empowerment, and reconnection with the Fabric of Consciousness, they often reinforce ego, confusion, and spiritual bypass.

In scholarly circles, we see a similar phenomenon. Academics without personal experience of mystical connection may theorize from a distance, appropriating spiritual language and insights but missing and misunderstanding the transformative core of what mystical experience is really about. Such scholars risk becoming armchair mystics, treating spiritual experience as an abstract object of study rather than a living path of healing, alignment, and social revolution.

In both cases — whether academic or spiritual — the failure to commit to a rigorous, integrative path of healing and connection leads to misrepresentation of spiritual realities, and often to elite capture, where spiritual tools are twisted to serve the needs of capitalism, hierarchy, or personal aggrandizement

System Agents Sowing Ideology

As I began the work of organizing and articulating the Lightning Path knowledge system, I quickly discovered that the most difficult obstacles weren’t spiritual in nature — they were ideological.

At every stage, I encountered resistance, distortion, and even open hostility — not just from elite institutions, but from individuals acting as System Agents — people who had internalized the dominant narratives so deeply they couldn't even see them as ideology. These agents — teachers, academics, therapists, religious leaders, even well-meaning spiritual seekers — challenged, undermined, or attempted to “correct” my work because it didn’t conform to their programming and preconceptions.

In some cases, these people believed they were helping. Others were overtly hostile. But in both cases, they were acting on behalf of a system that has a vested interest in maintaining confusion, disconnection, and trauma. Without always knowing it, they were sowing ideology — reinforcing the very beliefs and assumptions the Lightning Path seeks to challenge and dissolve.

And it goes deeper. Many of these agents write books, host podcasts, offer workshops, or teach courses — spreading ideas that either deliberately distort spiritual truth in service of elite agendas, or — just as often — accidentally mislead others because of their own unresolved trauma, confusion, or lack of deep Connection. These books become barriers, muddying the waters, reinforcing ego, bypassing healing, or repackaging capitalist ideology in spiritual garb. They present disconnection as enlightenment, suffering as growth, and hierarchy as divine order. Whether through ignorance or intent, the result is the same: a proliferation of distorted knowledge that makes it more difficult for people to see clearly, heal fully, or connect authentically.

Trying to introduce a healing, connection-centered Human Development Framework like the Lightning Path meant working against an entrenched ideological machinery — one that polices boundaries and punishes those who dare to question the sacred myths of capitalism, institutional religion, or even mainstream psychology.

The deeper I went into the work, the clearer it became: building the LP was not just about writing and organizing knowledge — it was about resisting an entire ideological ecosystem designed to keep people asleep. And so the task became twofold: to build the system, and to clear the ideological weeds that had been sown in myself, my peers, and the very communities I hoped to reach.

Learning to See Through the Fog: EPMO as Obstruction

One of the most unexpectedly difficult challenges I faced while building the Lightning Path knowledge system was learning to see through the fog of EPMO — that is, Egotistical, Polysyllabic, Multi-metaphoric Obfuscation.

At first, I didn’t have a name for it. I just knew that something felt off when I read certain texts — especially in esoteric, academic, or “spiritual” circles. The language was heavy, the metaphors confusing, the grammar bloated. Writers buried basic truths in layers of arbitrary correspondences, grandiloquent phrases, and metaphoric detours that seemed more about ego performance than actual communication. And yet, for a long time, I assumed the problem was with me. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough. Maybe I just wasn’t “ready.”

It wasn’t until much later, after much trial, error, and frustration, that I finally recognized what was happening: this was not wisdom — this was EPMO.

EPMO is the linguistic equivalent of smoke and mirrors. Whether deployed intentionally to obscure truth, or unconsciously to mask confusion and inflate ego, its function is the same — to block clarity, elevate the speaker, and mystify the reader. It turns sacred knowledge into private property, accessible only to those who can decode the puzzle or endure the pain of parsing. It creates gatekeeping hierarchies, where complexity becomes the currency of legitimacy, and where anyone who dares to ask for plain speech is dismissed as ignorant, uninitiated, or unenlightened.

This made the process of building the LP particularly difficult. So many of the ideas I wanted to explore had already been written about — in one form or another — by mystics, psychologists, philosophers, or scholars. But trying to extract usable knowledge from their writing often felt like trying to find clean water in a swamp of narcissistic word-vomit. I had to spend countless hours deconstructing needlessly complex texts just to uncover the simple, elegant truths they were actively hiding.

I came to realize that much of this obfuscation wasn’t even conscious. Many authors were themselves victims of ideological conditioning and damaged ego structures. They didn’t know how to speak simply because they didn’t understand deeply. And so they relied on puffed-up language and symbolic filler to compensate. In other cases — especially with certain esoteric figures (Aleister Crowley comes to mind) — the EPMO was deliberate. A tool of elite obfuscation and spiritual authoritarianism, designed to create confusion, dependency, and cultic control.

And let's not forget the academics — a whole class of professionals rewarded for how complicated they can make something sound, rather than how clearly they can explain it. I’ve met many of them. I used to be one of them.

In the end, recognizing and naming EPMO was essential to the development of the Lightning Path. I knew from the start that if LP was going to help anyone — really help — it had to be clear, accessible, and grounded. It had to cut through the crap. That meant adopting a writing style that was plain, direct, and sometimes even playful. It meant refusing the “language games” that dominate much of spirituality and scholarship. And it meant creating tools like the SpiritWiki to provide uncluttered, de-ideologized definitions of core concepts, without the fish-slapping nonsense.

EPMO is still out there. You’ll find it in bookstores, podcasts, classrooms, and on stages — wherever ideology, insecurity, and spiritual confusion collide. But once you learn to spot it, it loses its power. And that’s the real cure — not just a fish slap (though that helps), but clarity, confidence, and the courage to say what you mean

EPMO

• Nomenclature Confusion
• Scholarly dilatants as experts
• System Agents who deliberately sow Ideology and Misinformation.
• EPMO

Professional Challenges

• Bias and prejudice in the academy.

Footnotes

References