Well, if by religion you mean a system of concepts and ideas that purports to offer you the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth about God, spirit, consciousness, creation, purpose, and so on (the so called BIG QUESTIONS), and that you can (if you wish) choose as a guide to help you awaken and understand the true nature of this universe, and that will lead you to greater understanding, wisdom, and power, then ya this is a religion because it does purport to offer you the Truth about all things spiritual and it does offer you guidance on how to properly live your life (right thought, right action, right environment) in conjunction with your nature as incarnated spark of Divinity. On the Lightning Path you will find statements about the nature of God (and god), consciousness, creation, your nature, our purpose, and our location in the grand scheme of things--just like you would find in a religion.

However, if by religion you mean a system of concepts and ideas that purports to offer you the Truth, but then threatens you (with hell, damnation, and bad karma), if you don't believe the Truth...

And if by religion you mean you mean an institution that is exclusionary and elitist, only allowing "the worthy," "the chosen," "the righteous," and the believers to be rewarded...

And if by religion you mean a system of thought that accepts and justifies the horrible violence and injustice of this world, and that excuses great wealth in the midst of global child starvation...

And if by religion you mean an institution that divides and separates us into good versus evil and then teaches punishment, death, damnation, war, and destruction for those defined as evil...

And if by religion you mean a system of thoughts and ideas that discourages critical thought...

And if by religion you mean a system of belief that uses guilt and shame to control your behaviour...

Then no, this is not a religion.

Well, if by mystery school you mean a place where you can go and learn all the esoteric spiritual "mysteries" of creation, then yes this is. Within the books and websites of the Lightning Path^TM you will find answers to virtually every spiritual question that you might have, and explanations and definitions for virtually every spiritual concept you may have come across in your travels. When you open the gate and step into the hallways of this mystery school you will learn everything from the nature of God and consciousness, through the creation of the physical universe out of the vibratory consciousness of Spirit, through to the purpose of your existence, the nature of your physical vessel, and how to properly care for, nurture, and develop your physical vehicle (your body) in order that it may become a suitable vessel for the powerful spiritual entity that you are.

However, if by mystery school you mean some secretive, often gender exclusive (i.e. boys only), extremely expensive organization that only provides information to people who are worthy (typically defined as people who can afford the fees), and that couches that information in complication, misdirection, and maze like conceptual structures to hide the exclusionary, elitist, and even abusive nature of their ideas (and to keep you dependent and paying the ridiculous fees for extended periods of time), all the while pandering to your ego by trying to convince you of the "exclusive" or "special" nature of its students, teachers, and information, then no this is not a mystery school. Frankly, a more appropriate term for an organization like that might be trap or pitfall on the path.

In any case, if your idea of authentic spiritual knowledge is secret Egyptian rituals, intonation in the caverns, complicated esoteric "truths," and confusing and maze like structures, this is not the place for you. If however you are interested in grounded, straightforward, precise, logical, clear, and "appropriate for the modern world" explanations of spirituality, God, consciousness, the cosmos, and your place in it, then be welcome and at home. It may be presumptuous to say at this early stage but I'll say it anyway. You have found what you have been looking for so sit back, grab a cup of tea, and have a look around. I'm certain you won't be disappointed.  I am Michael Sharp and I welcome you to the Lightning Path school of awakening, empowerment, and ascension!

If you have a spiritual or practical question that isn't answered in one of the site FAQs, the SpiritWiki, or the public areas of the forum, then you can either

1. register on the site and post your question in the forums or
2. email me directly at michael@avatarpublication.coml. I answer all emails but sometimes your emails don't get through so if they don't, don't hesitate to email me again.

When you die, when your physical unit can no longer function, and/or when your consciousness is no longer able (or willing) to maintain a connection, your consciousness leaves your body, your brain activity ceases, and your body's cells (which can no longer maintain their coherence with the absence of consciousness) begin to fall apart.

After your consciousness leaves your body, you are free to do and go wherever you want. Nobody stands in judgment of you, no "karmic law" determines your subsequent "placement," and the "vibratory level you attained while in body" is absolutely irrelevant to your subsequent choices. You may, if you wish, go immediately stand in an "incarnation lineup" and await the opportunity to reincarnate in a body once again. You may also take a break and remain "in spirit" for as long as you desire. You may also leave this universe and try incarnation in one of the other universe's available for our experience. You may offer to guide those who you have left behind. It all depends on what you want to do, though it should be said that we tend to maintain our significant relationships across lifetimes. if you have strong connections while incarnated, and if you have not chosen to "break" these connections, you will tend to maintain these connections and seek reincarnation within your chosen families.

http://www.thespiritwiki.com

The SpiritWiki is where I define all the concepts and ideas I use in all my writing. If you see me use a word or phrase and it's a new word or phrase (like Fabric of Consciousness, or Intensification of Consciousness), check the SpiritWiki. Chances are the term is defined there. You should also check the SpiritWiki even with terms and phrases you are familiar with (like the word "God"). In order to create a solid framework for authentic spirituality and move beyond any old world limitations and misunderstandings, I tend to do a lot of redefining of terms (for example the word "sin" has a very specific meaning with the LP teachings).

Well, if by "channel" you mean to ask, "do I talk to dead people," then ya I do. I wouldn't call it "channeling" though. From my perspective, "channeling" is something that a naive spiritual neophyte does when either

1. they have an ego problem and have a need to look cool, or want to seem like they have special powers.
2. they have a responsibility problem and don't want to be held accountable (if they get their information wrong, they can blame it on the dead people)
3. they simply aren't at an intellectual or emotional level where they can understand the information and therefore have to provide verbatim transcripts
4. they draw the erroneous conclusion that dead people always and necessarily know more than live people. Call this the angel error if you want.

What I do instead is connect to what I call The Fabric of Consciousness (see my Book of Light volume one for a definition). That is, I circumvent bodily restrictions on connecting with higher consciousness (restrictions that exist partly for survival purposes, and partly because they keep us spiritually impotent and easy to control) and connect with that part of us which is God and which provides the foundation and prime mobile of all creation (you'll need to read my Book of Light to get what I'm saying here). Once connected, I then talk to whomever I want to about whatever I want (or need) to talk about. It's a conversation just like the kind of conversation you might have around a dinner table, except nobody except me is eating.

Sound crazy?

To some it does. If you're one of those materialists who believe that human existence is defined by the boundaries of your body. If you think consciousness is contained and caused by the quantum operations of the brain, if you think that all things emerge from some sort of foundational material reality, then ya it sounds crazy. Loopy even. I can just hear the scoffing skeptics patting themselves proudly on the back as they chuckle and raise a toast to the Lord High Richard Dawkins.

On the other hand, if you are not a materialist, if you don't believe that existence is defined by the boundaries of the human body, if you think consciousness exists sui generis (i.e. in and of itself) and the body only provides a container, then talking with "dead people" (i.e. people without a container) doesn't seem too strange at all. In fact, if you are on this side of the fence as I am (read my Book of Light: The Nature of God, the Structure of Consciousness, and the Universe Within You), then it's the materialists who look crazy. In fact, if you ask me, people who limit their existence to the confines of their physical body are a lot like boat captains who never get out of their boat because they don't believe that anything else exists, except their boat. Silly-nillies, and badly misinformed.

In any case, I'd just like to close by saying that just because my research process includes consultation with certain dead people doesn't mean the books that I write should be attributed to anybody but me. Mark Twain talked to a lot of people in his life but no matter how he may have been influenced by his conversations, when he put pen to paper, it was his words that he was writing and nobody in their right mind would claim otherwise.

ms

The cheapest way to get the books is by emailing michaels_ebooks@avatarpublication.com. If you do that, I'll send you the link to the eBooks for free. I do formally request however that you offer some kind of energetic exchange. The books, this website, the SpiritWiki, represents thousands of hours of my time and years of my energy. If you find the work that I have done useful for you and your family, an energetic exchange would be nice. The easiest to exchange is to pay for the books. You can either pay through my Lightning Path Press where the LP Core books are available as eBooks for a measly $11.11 (print also available) or you can provide a custom payment in the sum of whatever you feel is fair. If you don't want to exchange money but would prefer to get more involved in the dissemination of this work, check this "what can I do to help" page out.

Are you a Christian? Are these Christian teachings? What do you call someone who follows these teachings?

Well, I was born a Christian. I went to a Christian cathedral, had a Christian family, spent time as an altar boy, and listened to the Sunday sermons. So ya, in that sense, I am. I’m pretty much that, and if you look you’ll see some of the influence of Christianity in the metaphors I use in my writing (though I do incorporate the teachings of other streams of thought).

However, I am not a “follower” of Christianity. While I believe that there is deep spiritual truth buried in the depth of Christian dogma, there is also much untruth and even outright lie. I believe this is the case with all current spiritual or religious pathways. All dogma, all teaching, all esoteric revelation is a combination of hidden spiritual truth, overt lie, and intentional deceptions. The whole thing is a ridiculously over complex conglomeration of truth, mistruth, lie, and misdirection.

I consider myself spiritually promiscuous. I consider it my job to find and reflect the common truths (and untruths) in all religious/spiritual dogma. I see myself as a bit of a sludge monkey. I dig around in the astral mud of our collective consciousness to find a gem of spiritual truth. When I find that gem, I wash it off, and present it in pure, clean, and unadulterated form. By the time I’m done, I will have recovered the entire crystal palace of our collective spiritual glory.

Well, the short answer is, yes.

Of course.

In fact, there are two instances in which we can say that we are literally surrounded by aliens.

First of all, there are aliens all around us in invisible ships.

Think I’m kidding? Consider this. In 2004 a Mexican army fighter jet recorded several circular objects as they intelligently tracked the pilot’s flight path through the air. What is so startling about this is that the objects only showed up on infrared camera! To the naked eye, the objects were invisible!!

Just imagine, invisible objects could be right above your home right now, and you wouldn’t even know it.

Wow!!

Now, I’m not trying to freak you out. I know there’s nothing to be afraid of and besides, with technology that far in advance of ours, if they had evil intent, they wouldn’t need to ask permission for anything. Would they? Obviously, if they are here (and if they’ve been here since at least Roswell), they are here with good intent. Nothing to fear.

Second of all, there are aliens all around us inhabiting human bodies.

I know that to some people reading, this may seem like total nonsense, but that is only because you adopt two erroneous notions about identity and existence. Erroneous notion one is that your identity is determined by the body that you are born into. That is, you are cacausian, black, Chinese, or whatever. Erroneous notion two is that you live out your lifetime (or your lifetimes) in the same type of body. That is, you are born a human, you live a human, you die a human, and you (go to heaven or) are re-born a human.

Of course, neither of those notions are true. On the one hand, and although most of you reading this still draw identity from your body (i.e., you are female, American, Native, whatever), in fact you have a greater identity (your higher self) that participates in a greater consciousness that draws its identity from a much bigger reality than you are used to inhabiting (see my Book of Light) with your veiled consciousness. In that greater reality, being human occupies only a tiny fraction of your total corporeal (and non-corporeal) experience.

On the other hand, the human body is not the only vehicle model that we get to choose from. We are immortal spirit and we can live out a life in any kind of body we choose. You want to fly like an eagle or swim like a dolphin? Chances are you have. You believe you aren’t from this earth? Chances are you are not. Where are you originally from? Could be many places. With the lifting of The Veil (see my Book of the Triumph of Spirit) you’ll remember in short time. For now just think about what I’ve told you. Expand your mind a little bit and consider the possibility.

Are there aliens among us?

Well duh.

Of course!

The writing is on the wall, as they say.

{sa 0973537906}Because of changes to the parameters of physical creation (ascension), and because of the removal of your energetic chains (awakening and empowerment), in the post-ascension universe, creation and manifestation will be a lot easier. Therefore the key difference between pre and post ascension life will be in your ability to manifest. In the post-ascension world you will experience less resistance, less energy drain, and a more fluid and connected manifestation process. In other words, life will be whatever you (either consciously or unconsciously) want it to be.  This will be good or bad for you depending on the progress you have made in clearing fears and issues.

Book translations can be found listed on the translations page here. If the link does not work, the translation page is listed along the top site menu.

Resource translations (i.e. parable translations, article translations, etc.) are a work in progress. To access available translations, simply click on the flag of your appropriate language to set your site language and then browse the site as normal. If translations exist, they will appear automatically.

If you want to help translate the site or the books into your language, please contact michael@avatarpublication.com.

I've often read that one should visualize the chakras as spinning and most authors say that they should be spun in a clockwise direction. However, I've never read anywhere exactly how to view the chakras to induce a clockwise spin. I've always assumed that if someone were viewing my chakras from in front of me that they would see them spinning clockwise, but I've never been 100% sure.

It does not matter how you "spin" your chakras. As outlined in The Dossier of the Ascension: A Practical Guide to Chakra Activation and Kundalini Awakening, chakras are energy conduits. They are much like fire hoses where the energy of creation comes flowing into this material universe through the pathways provided by your physical unit. The trick to sucessful chakra activation is to simply focus on the rate of energy flow. Visualize raw energy (you may color this, or add a tone if you like, but it is not necessary), flowing through your chakras and into this physical world. Once the energy enters you (and by "you" I mean the monad incarnated in the physical unit) may then utilize the energy for creative tasks.

As noted in Dossier of the Ascension, opening the chakras and getting energy to flow is simple. However, maintaining that flow is difficult because of fears, ideas, and dogma that causes you to clamp down on the energies. You will not engage in healthy expression (a throat chakra function) if you are afraid of speaking your mind because of the consequences of telling your truths. Neither will you tap into the intuitive and psychic realms if you harbor fears of demons, possession, and madness.

For a detailed discussion of chakras and how to activate them, please consult The Dossier of the Ascension: A Practical Guide to Chakra Activation and Kundalini Awakening.