It’s good to remember that whatever the emotional, mental, or life pain or trauma we face — whatever the shadow or ghost — we can at any time assemble the most powerful team of advisors, healers, teachers, and friends available to help us. It can be anyone, close by or at distance; a quality, such as courage or kindness. Whatever we think we need.

They all come together in what we call The Inner Conclave, a multi-dimensional interior gathering of the many lives and resources accessible within us. If we face the trauma caused by abuse or loss, for example, we can imagine in our Conclave a person or quality that represents love, or trust, or wisdom.

It’s not merely a mental picture, but the energetic value and consciousness that work together to illuminate and in time transform the shadow or ghost, the pain and anguish. Where do our ghosts come from? Imagine an inner intelligence we call a soul that seeks always to keep us safe, and reconnect us to the natural love and wonder in us at birth.

We discover much more about the ghost and shadow, and the healing possibility of The Inner Conclave practice, in this conversation with Aviv Shahar and longtime Portals friend Jeff Vander Clute. Jeff is a consultant and author of three recent books, including Beyond Every Teaching, a collection of transformative spiritual transmissions.

Among their insights:

• It’s a step-by-step process, potentially a navigable journey, to engage one's soul and come into the right relationship, a wholeness, with oneself. Miraculously, the world then begins to reflect our wholeness.
• The Inner Conclave contemplation enables a larger space and capacity, not to bypass or suppress the pain, but to illuminate and metabolize the ache and anguish.
• Suddenly, what used to be very big is no longer so large, as all the capacities and qualities we imagine and summon come online and take part in the inner conflict.
• We can bring mental healing to a whole lineage — a tribe, a nation — as part of humanity tapping into a universally-inclined shared experience accessed together in The Inner Conclave.
• Releasing ourself from the arresting limitation of polarities is to allow the natural multiplicity of voices, qualities, and essences that we are to impart their intelligence and revelation.
• Whatever the inner script, we each have a shadow or ghost pattern enacted with us because of our formative painful experience. Can it reveal a high truth or voice? How can we disarm it safely?

This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.