Paradigm Shifting Research
It is no secret that the world is messed up and getting worse every day. If we are going to save ourselves from increasingly catastrophic environmental, political, economic, psychological, and spiritual outcomes, we are going to have to become different than we are right now because right now, how we are is destroying our selves and the planet. Since all things follow thought, the first step to becoming different is to reconsider our understanding of the world, our understanding of ourselves, and our approaches to life and work. That’s harder than you think because, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out,[1]Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press., we are creatures of intellectual and existential inertia. It takes a lot of energy to change how we see the world. Still, we have to do it.
In order to facilitate change and create Eupsychia, the Lightning Path Institute adopts several foundational theoretical statements, methodological principles, and research priorities designed to help create the intellectual and emotional space for paradigmatic change.
We make the following basic theoretical statements
Human Nature and Consciousness
Humans have a dual nature, a physical nature rooted in the physiology and neurology of the body, and a non-physical nature rooted in a larger Fabric of Consciousness.
Humans have a dual consciousness that consists of a Bodily Ego rooted in the physiology of the body, and a Spiritual Ego rooted in a non-material reality of Consciousness.
Human Health and Development
Healthy human development (full actuation of human potential, healthy body, healthy and happy Bodily Ego) depends on the sufficient satisfaction of all Seven Essential Needs.
Physiological, neurological, psychological, emotional, and spiritual dysfunction, disease, and disconnection (the 3Ds) are caused by passive neglect or active thwarting of the Seven Essential Needs.
Human Economies
Current economic systems are based on a Regime of Accumulation designed to enrich a few while impoverishing the many. This system and its institutions actively thwarts needs satisfaction in order to create and insert compliant worker bees into their Regime of Accumulation.
Full human development requires the development of new institutional and economic systems based on a proper valuation of human life and proper distribution of material production.
We have the following research priorities
Human Development
Like the esteemed psychologist Abraham Maslow before us[2]Maslow, Abraham H. Eupsychian Management: A Journal. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin Inc. & The Dorsey Press., 1965. https://archive.org/details/eupsychianmanage0000masl/ we want to help create Eupsychia or the good and harmonious society. Put another way, we want to know how to grow healthy, happy, empowered, and creative human beings who can envision solutions and solve even the complex social, economic, and political problems.
Like creating proper soil conditions to grow healthy plants, we want to know the proper conditions that create healthy, happy, empowered, and creative humans capable of solving the world’s problems.
Institutional Reform
We know that creating healthy, happy, human beings (creating a global eupsychia) is a massive collective effort that will require not only fundamental political and economic change, but sophisticated institutional supports designed specifically to meet human needs throughout the entire lifespan.[3]“It Takes a Village: Advancing Attachment Theory and Recovering the Roots of Human Health with the Seven Essential Needs.” Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/61410417/. This is not an easy task, but given the state of the world, it must be done.
Creating change does not with the individual, it starts with our institutions. We want to know, as researchers, parents, friends, teachers, business people, professionals, politicians and village people, what we can do in our own institutions to usher in an authentic eupsychia.
Rapid Transformation
We know that, for various reasons, people resist change. We also know that change cannot happen incrementally, it must happen rapidly and globally and via rapid transformation. We know that such transformation is possible as it has been talked about (salvation, enlightenment, moksha) for millennia.
We want to know how to facilitate safe, rapid transformation. We look to the power of Connection Supplements (a.k.a. psychedelics) to heal individuals damaged by Toxic Socialization so that they themselves can facilitate rapid global change.
We adopt the following expanded ontology and epistemology
Expanded Worldview
Given the state of the world and our inability to correct course and avoid psychological, ecological, and social debacle, it would be safe to say that our current ways of seeing the world and our place in it are inadequate. We need to learn to see the world and our selves in a completely different fashion.
In order to facilitate this, the LPI admits an expanded worldview that includes an open-minded consideration that the universe may be a universe of consciousness, that we are more than submissive souls or evolutionary meat-buckets, and that more exists than what we can see with physical senses and instrumentation.
Expanded Methods
Even though “reality” might consist of more than just what we can see with our own eyes, we still need logic and sound empirical investigation. Otherwise, we risk being dismissed and derided. At the same time, traditional empirical methodologies presume the primacy of material reality and are therefore incapable of facilitating exploration on their own.
To facilitate exploration, the Lightning Path Institute admits, in addition to standard empirical methodologies, the use of expanded research methodologies and methods. This includes scholarly autoethnography as well as connection with what Keith Williams calls MTH expertise.[4]Keith Williams et al., “Indigenous Philosophies and the ‘Psychedelic Renaissance,’” Anthropology of Consciousness 33, no. 2 (September 1, 2022): 506–27, https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12161
Expanded Consciousness
Traditional approaches to human health, well-being, and development are typically ignorant of certain economic, political, and ideological aspects of our collective reality, aspects that have profound impact on our individual and collective health and well-being. This includes ignorance of the extant Regime of Accumulation (ROA) and how it undermines healthy human developent.
Understanding that the current ROA is an impediment to full and authentic human development, we strive to raise consciousness of this system so that we might have a real hope of replacing it with a system capable of supporting Eupsychia.
It Takes a Village
We can create a Eupsychia only by going beyond current limited, largely Eurocentric theoretical paradigms to develop and empirically support more avanced paradigms of health and development. Our first step it to rethink Eurocentric fundamentals like Bowlby’s Attachment theory or Maslow’s co-opted hierarchy of needs. Read our paper “Advancing attachment theory and recovering the roots of human health with the Circle of Seven Essential Needs“
From the SpiritWiki[5]The SpiritWiki is the canonical repository of all things Lightning Path. For more information, visit the about page.
Seven Essential Needs
The Seven Essential Needs are the seven needs the physical body and mind is required to meet in order to grow, develop, and finally achieve and maintain strong.
The seven essential needs include five basic needs (physiological, emotional, cognitive, psychological, and environmental and two inner needs (alignment and connection)
Regime of Accumulation
Connected Science is an emerging science that takes seriously the possibility of non-material reality and a form of Consciousness independent of physical existence. Connected Science finds a home in journals like the Journal of Scientific Exploration and Frontiers in Psychology.
Bodily Ego
Toxic socialization is a socialization process characterized by psychological, emotional, and physical violence. Toxic socialization profoundly damages the body and mind. We discuss Toxic Socialization and its impacts in detail in our working paper “Toxic Socialization”
Spiritual Ego
Toxic socialization is a socialization process characterized by psychological, emotional, and physical violence. Toxic socialization profoundly damages the body and mind. We discuss Toxic Socialization and its impacts in detail in our working paper “Toxic Socialization”
Footnotes
| ↟1 | Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press. |
|---|---|
| ↟2 | Maslow, Abraham H. Eupsychian Management: A Journal. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin Inc. & The Dorsey Press., 1965. https://archive.org/details/eupsychianmanage0000masl/ |
| ↟3 | “It Takes a Village: Advancing Attachment Theory and Recovering the Roots of Human Health with the Seven Essential Needs.” Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/61410417/. |
| ↟4 | Keith Williams et al., “Indigenous Philosophies and the ‘Psychedelic Renaissance,’” Anthropology of Consciousness 33, no. 2 (September 1, 2022): 506–27, https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12161 |
| ↟5 | The SpiritWiki is the canonical repository of all things Lightning Path. For more information, visit the about page. |