If we’re seeking a feeling of illumination or deeper connection to the universal and divine, what clues and meaning can we find in perhaps the best-known story of transformation in western history — the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ? Does it reveal an esoteric path to active engagement with evolution and expanding consciousness? Or is it a powerful metaphor for an innate human species capacity to grow and develop?

In this conversation, Aviv Shahar and metamodern thought leader Brendan Graham Dempsey continue their lively dialogue on the many faces of Jesus Christ, the central pillar of Christianity. Building on their previous conversation, they focus on mystical and metamodern appreciations of the mystery of the Transfiguration.

The exploration goes beyond historical accounts to seek the significance of such a transformation to our own pursuit of meaning, connection, purpose and expanded awareness. How do each of us experience our own moments of sacred empowerment and profound, life-changing insight and inspiration?

The conversation expands our understanding of this unique time, into the evolutionary possibility to experience and express our true universal nature. Aviv and Brendan’s many insights include:

• The story of Christ’s transfiguration is a key moment of storytelling in the broader narrative that we see unfolding in human cultural evolution towards a shift in higher consciousness.
• We have entered a unique time where the species is reaching for something beyond Homo Solaris — the Universalis human, where we can again embrace plurality.
• We are not human beings seeking a spiritual experience, but spirit beings becoming human to develop, mature and become vessels for continual evolution to occur through us as co-creators.
• The first consideration in an esoteric contemplation is that a prophecy, or any learning, is actualized not when it occurs, but when it has been witnessed and validated.
• If the spiritual discourse is not amenable to the same kinds of justification dynamics as science or other discourse, it is insulated from critique, and breaks down into ‘you feel it or you don’t’.
• Focusing only on exterior sources of knowledge, and giving credence to the microscope and telescope, can disenfranchise the ‘interior scope’ and natural inner sense organs.

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.