How do we acquire, assimilate and verify knowledge?

Exploring an inquiry as old as the human capacity to search for truth, which is re-enlivened in our times with the many challenges facing the human family globally, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis invite us into a journey of discovery, tracing fascinating new pathways toward integrated understanding.

They begin with the awareness that scientific inquiry has opened a world of astonishing can-do possibilities, while also training us to exteriorize knowledge, giving rise to a widening separation between the interior and exterior dimensions of life.

In response, the conversation seeks to invite a new kind of integration. It opens with the idea of conscience, then moves from exoteric to mesoteric and esoteric perspectives, exploring questions such as: What is the purpose of human life? Could the universe be purposeful? And what would it mean to shift from the knowledge of things and concepts to the knowledge of processes and relationships?

They ask: How can esoteric knowledge or Creational Logic be sourced? What can the natural world, from daffodils to bears, from orchids to our own digestive systems, teach us about the innate authentication and verification built into life itself?

Proposing that the pursuit of truth and knowledge involves natural validation and verification inherent in the structure of life, the conversation weaves an exciting range of inquiries, offering a space where science, spirituality, and philosophy can come together to co-create a greater whole that liberates and nurtures the flourishing of life.

Additional insights explored include:

• In the ancient world, science, spirituality, and philosophy formed an integrated whole in the search for truth and knowledge.
• While the scientific project enabled extraordinary achievements in the modern world, it also contributed to the fragmentation of these three streams and the widening divide between interior and exterior knowledge.
• The significance of this moment in human evolution, as we step into the unknown—and how to validate the cathedral of inquiry now opening before us.
• What does it mean to live a purposeful life inside a purposeful universe, and how does such a stance offer an esoteric invitation into a pathway of discovery?
• How close observation of the natural worlds and life – from the relationship of the mama bear to her cubs, to the intricate workings of our own digestive systems -- demonstrates that authentication is accomplished through integrated, multi-pathway validation.
• How the global challenges facing humanity demand a broader, more inclusive way of validating truth and knowledge.

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.

“So we are proposing here that the pursuit of truth and knowledge involve the natural validation and verification inherent in life. That's basically the surge here to reintegrate life, in its fuller sense, to the inquiry of knowledge and truth. And, in the bigger scheme of things, it recognizes that it is about bringing together science, spirituality and philosophy to sustain their distinctions while creating a greater whole that liberates and nurtures the flourishing of life.” (Aviv)

“If it's a completely random universe, why does it need to do anything? Why doesn't it just stay in bed? Why does it need to develop life forms? What's the urge by which life wants to develop, and evolve, and move forward? Where does that urge come from? Because it clearly exists, because the evidence of it is right there. So there's an urge underlying all of organic life to, in some way, be functional and be moving forward and developing. So what is that urge? Where does it come from? And how come it's there?” (David)

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The Revelation of Knowledge – Current Openings #22

Imagine a process that can bypass our dominant, loves-to-be-in-control brain and open a subtle energetic pathway to help us sense and feel the many dimensions of the Universalis human. A deeper contemplative process of feelings and intuition, not fixed mental boundaries.

In the newest Universalis Project conversation, Aviv Shahar, Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou explore the potential of a guided meditative process in expanding access to our universal nature. They demonstrate several pathways in an abiding circle meditation, a process that focuses the creative energy generated in the shared ecology of a group contemplation.

The circle meditation is a healing journey of inner discovery that invites us to metabolize and release pain and trauma. It builds inner conductivity and activates latent capacities and sense organs that enable deeper registrations of our universalis possibility. Other insights from Aviv, Karen and Kyriaki include:

• By abiding with inquiries in collective circle meditations, we unlock different processes, shifting from mental references to a whole person melting, merging, and harmonizing of different feelings and inner states.
• We are not one thing; we are multiple lives within; a soul, spirit and many other capacities. A struggle emerges as this orchestra faces the demands of an exterior world while forever harmonizing the interior life.
• Meditative abiding engenders greater awareness of the subtle bodies of somatic and mental processes. Each organ has its energetic body; together they constitute a configuration of presences.
• We shrink and separate ourselves by all sorts of modern conventions, but spiritual traditions and texts invite us to realize we are the crown jewel of the universal process here on this planet.
• The nature of universal love is that we are never alone, even when we feel lonely. The spiritual source of this love is forever around us with healing and possibility.

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.

“The Universalis human will also not arise through some techno-utopian version of ourselves. We are not likely to find the Universalis human arising in silicon, or in sophisticated computer chips. My conviction, my belief, is that the birthing of a new human possibility, the suggestion is that the Universalis permission, the Universalis possibility, the Universalis activation, occurs inside us and in between us.” (Aviv)

“Wherever you will find a group of people who are interested in how we humans are evolving, both to solve the existential problems that the meta-crisis brought to us, and even more so to do so by unlocking our latent potential, the way we go about cultivating our interior inquiries and contemplations, individually and collectively, we are leaning into these possibilities, which is, how can we be part - a co-creative, co-participative part - of the rise of a universal human?” (Aviv)

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The Universalis Project #15: Pathways to Universal Life

If an incoming wave of universal change is influencing human behavior and global culture, as many have said, how do we see it? Where is it appearing? Can we really decode the flow and patterns of evolution as they emerge almost real-time in many of the core domains of human life and endeavor?

In the newest chapter of the The Universalis Project, Aviv Shahar and Portals friends Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou explore possible evidence of an unfolding new epoch in the breakthroughs and revelations that are transforming many areas of the modern world.

As they discover, creating space for something new, even the flow of emerging new universal possibility, happens when a person or circumstance come to the edge of their experience and knowledge, and resist the pull of history and prevailing available wisdom. They push through.

The breakthroughs that can transform humanity occur in many fields of life and expression, often driven by a compelling need for change. These transformations happen in science, technology, health and healing, leadership, and organizational dynamics. Resisting, transcending and going beyond the past are at the heart of attuning ourselves to the living flow of evolution and the future.

Among the many insights and points of inspiration in the Universalis conversation:

• Pushing the envelope: Great scientists and inventors don’t evolve in a void; they push the envelope of discovery on behalf of a universe that seeks to become more intelligent and conscious through its human partners.
• Natural leadership: Indigo and Violet impulses support a transition from rigid, mechanical systems to organic, emergent ways that attune to natural rhythms of life, such as in distributed and feminine leadership.
• Beyond royalty: There is a bigger idea in how human beings can manage themselves, other than the genealogy of a royal line — processes and protocols in the Blue system that facilitate democracies.
• Making mistakes: Pioneers see a need and are not satisfied with the prevailing paradigm; they don't stop themselves in the search for something new, and don't mind making mistakes.

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.

“We're proposing that Acropolis work is prodding and poking and exploring into and beyond the edge for new connections, for new permissions, for new communion possibilities. And that when we do so, we seek to activate the human temple, the template of human life. Because every time we expand the horizon to new permissions, we are opening the broader template of human possibility, it's like we discover that the human mansion had another room that we never stepped into.” (Aviv)

“This begins again in asserting the more than human realms I'm choosing to describe here, the idea that human life is not flying solo in the universe. We are forever accompanied by the luminescent realms of possibility, and the luminescent realms of possibility, and the ascending and transcending spirals of development between other things, contain all the human endeavor throughout history and more.” (Aviv)

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The Universalis Project #14: Decoding the Current of the Epoch

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.

“We are not actually flying here on our own. This is not just a biological experience. That we are, in fact, not human beings seeking a spiritual experience, we are, in fact, spirit beings coming into the human experience to gain development and maturation such that we become vessels for continual evolution to occur through us as we are co-participants and co-creators of this evolution.” (Aviv)

“How do we make this journey? And we went back and forth in finding, carving, a way to enable a space that perhaps is not defined by the gravitational logic that we process every day, and at the same time that is not going to abandon certain frameworks and certain ways of thinking and being that will afford us freedom and safety and collaboration and, ultimately, possibilities to solve big problems on the global stage.” (Aviv)

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The Transfiguration Archetype

One of the most powerful tools of personal transformation is also one of the most accessible: it’s the story we tell ourselves about who we are and the future we imagine. It’s a story we can update and recalibrate every day — no permission beyond ourselves required to create and recreate the person we want to be and the way forward.

In this conversation, we continue the Epoch Journey series as Aviv Shahar and longtime Portals friend Jeff Vander Clute explore the process of self-authoring appraisal. How do we identify the blockages, possible pain and trauma, and limiting beliefs that hold us back from the vast field of larger potential that is our natural birthright?

As we update and realign our values and mental maps of meaning, we liberate greater versatility and range, and foster new pathways into our deeper universal nature. Appraising who we are today and the influences shaping our lives does not deny or bypass real challenges we may face. It allows us to melt and heal many types of inner scar tissue and discover our natural resilience.

Among Aviv and Jeff’s other insights and discoveries:

• What external persuasions do we allow inside ourselves? A modern vulnerability is openness to impressions that foster self-doubt.
• If we deny the point of pain, or suppress unresolved trauma or unmet essential needs, then already we are in a distorted view, bypassing what the case actually is.
• We explore in the self-authoring appraisal process a way in which we let life itself lead us within the various domains of our growth, development and engagement.
• With enhanced resiliency available to humanity, the big question for the species is, are we going to make it? Do we have enough resiliency to shift from Homo sapiens sapiens to becoming Universalis?
• The self-authoring appraisal is a technology we can apply to almost any aspect of our lives, much like carefully attending to a garden, instead of running on autopilot and habit.
• We can receive guidance by connecting with our inner resources, or inner conclave. If we ask a question, and then clearly see our situation, we’re already beyond it.
• In a post-guru, epochal transition, we all lead; we need each other. Through shared discovery and co-creating, we provoke ourselves and create a greater ecology for the divine.

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.

“Life is open, life is an open system — the universe is actually an open system. So how do we live? How do we dance with life in an open system? It seems that you are pioneering certain understandings and modalities for how to dance with life, in openness. And in the openness each of us can show up fully, and very resiliently, and creatively. Openness is liberation, and inquiry grounds us in our own nature, which then allows us to continue to express and flower.” (Jeff)

“Just capturing two words from what you said that are so central to this appraisal process, and to being generatively creative in telling the story of your life anew every day. Waking up in the morning and saying, 'No, I was who I was yesterday, and today I'm telling the story again in a new way.' You are your own creator. You wake up in the morning and you have permission to rewrite your story today. That is, in what you said, that stopped me.” (Aviv)

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Resilience and the Crisis of Belief

A powerful way to envision our entry into this new phase of evolution and epochal shift is as a fusion process — a merging of the physical realm with a new universal potency that unlocks immense possibilities and profound renewal. Imagine it as an energetic Cambrian release for humanity and the planet. We dive deeper into the mysteries of the epochal shift underway in the latest chapter of the “Current Openings” series with Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis.

To better understand what we mean by an epoch, Aviv and David begin with a closer look at the energetic nature of the human and the cosmos. Modern thinking often confines reality to the limits of our biophysical form. However, we recognize an energetic dimension residing within and between all layers of organic, physical existence. Humans can sense and attune to these spiritual or energetic frequencies through finer faculties naturally embedded in our design. The energetic or unseen natures of the human and the planet evolve over time, which can be traced in the evolution of culture throughout history. This perspective reveals epochs as intelligent, purposeful programs of growth and refinement — forward-looking pathways guiding us toward a universal future.

Other insights and ponders:

• The new epoch calls for capacities beyond intellect — faculties essential for deeper integration of human life within the universe.
• Epochal changes do not arrive all at once. The energetic permission of the past holds initially but breaks down swiftly, giving rise dramatically to the new.
• By metabolizing new impressions, we activate new capacities and perceptions — a profound act of renewal; an evolutionary process creating something new on the inside.
• Rather than rejecting the past, we harvest its best elements and respectfully leave behind the rest. We carry forward a tested, validated value system.
• There is confusion, chaos, and suffering when we’re not able to connect with new energetic and spiritual fuel available for healing and development elevation.

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.

“An epoch is an evolutionary program, a program afforded by the universe and the planet, where humanity can go through specific and necessary development. The idea that the evolutionary process is just a random trial and error makes no sense; it's too brilliantly constructed. And there is clearly an ascending refinement and complexifying vector of life wanting to support higher levels, higher capacities, higher sophistication, higher consciousness.” (Aviv)

“This realization that in learning there is renewal. Because what it actually means is that we metabolize new impressions, and those new impressions activate in us new capacities and perceptions. And that, in that itself, is a profound act of renewal. And that therefore, as the epoch shifts and a new energy permission is afforded to human experience and to humanity at large, we are to truly expect that everything around us will continue to change in an intensified manner.” (Aviv)

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Current Openings #20 – The Epoch Mystery