Editorial Essay for Transfiguracionism
There are moments in history when time seems to lose its natural texture and stretch itself into a mist that confuses vision, perception, and discernment.
Not because the world has become darker — it has always known how to be dark —
but because its light, now, is more deceptive.
We live in an era in which brightness seduces before it illuminates.
And in which faith, politics, spirituality, identity, and even one’s sense of humanity are being filtered through increasingly distorted lenses.
More clearly each day, we may call this the age of illusions.
This is not naïve fantasy, but a sophisticated technology of appearance.
It is a time in which human consciousness is invited, every single day, to believe in the surface of the world — and not in its depth.
And perhaps for the first time, it is not only content that becomes distorted:
it is the very perception of reality that fractures.
This essay is a glimpse — a narrow opening — into this phenomenon.
Not to conclude it, but to name it.
Not to explain it, but to make it visible.
1. The literalism that devours the sacred
In many corners of the digital world, rushed interpretations of natural events proliferate, instantly transformed into “fulfilled prophecies.”
A sea tinted red by iron traces becomes, within seconds, the literal echo of Revelation.
An eclipse becomes a sign of the end.
A flood becomes the saddle of the pale horse.
There is no time for silence, study, contemplation, hermeneutics.
There is no room for symbolism.
Religious imagination — fragile, infantilized — turns into a superficial cinema of quick emotions and ready-made popular prophecies.
It is faith without depth, but in a hurry.
It is spirituality that does not kneel — it merely reacts.
The sacred loses density when it is turned into spectacle.
And here emerges one of the first symptoms of our era:
spiritual infantilization — the inability to perceive layers, rhythms, nuances, complexities.
Faith becomes a special effect.
And the Apocalypse becomes a movie trailer.
2. Performative sanctity — or the aesthetics of the elect
On the opposite extreme of the same problem appears a more discreet, more elegant — and therefore more dangerous — phenomenon:
aestheticized sanctity.
Impeccable homes, luminous clothing, melodious speeches, the promise of a life “that has already reached heaven” — all of this nurtures the imaginary of families and individuals who present themselves as representatives of absolute morality.
But none of this is fruit of the Spirit.
It is fruit of aesthetics.
Purity becomes a display window.
The Christian life turns into a brand.
Salvation becomes narrative.
Holiness is reduced to performance.
The unsuspecting public does not perceive the absence of depth, because everything is white, soft, harmonious —
but it is a blown-out white, without texture, without truth, without shadow, without incarnation.
The artificial light is so intense that it hides the soul.
It does not illuminate: it blinds.
This is not faith.
It is theater.
3. The Blown-Out White — the great metaphor of our time
The theory of the blown-out white reveals something essential:
There is a contemporary form of “light” that does not illuminate — it merely erases the depth of things.
It is the light that claims to be pure, but is merely flat.
It is the clarity that promises truth, but delivers only reflection.
It is the excess of brightness that conceals rather than reveals.
The blown-out white is the highest symbol of the age of illusions.
It appears:
• in religious discourse unable to acknowledge shadow
• in plasticized sanctity posed for the camera
• in end-times narratives treated as immediate facts
• in moral aesthetics that replace lived ethics
• in rapid certainties fed by fear or vanity
The blown-out white is the varnish of perdition.
Everything seems clear, but nothing is transparent.
4. The symbolic economy of vanity — the bank of pride
If these phenomena are the visible portrait of the contemporary deviant, what lies behind them is far deeper — and far more dangerous.
Pride operates like a spiritual banker.
It does not create life.
It does not produce meaning.
It does not build anything.
It merely lends illusions.
And each person who believes themselves author of their own performative sanctity, each influencer who prophesies ruin to gain attention, each voice that announces certainties without humility…
all of them are, in truth, banking agents of pride.
They think they run the business.
They are merely moving the banker’s account.
And receiving, in exchange, small emotional commissions:
• engagement
• likes
• a sense of importance
• flattery
• artificial relevance
• monetization
These are the coins of human vanity.
And each symbolic cent feeds spiritual ruin — individually and collectively.
It is not malice.
It is mechanism.
And the mechanism is perfect in keeping the soul imprisoned.
5. The spiral of downfall — the invisible path of the soul
When a person begins to operate under this logic, something subtle and grave begins to unfold:
At first, they know they are exaggerating.
Then, they notice that exaggeration works.
Then, that it brings followers.
Then, that it brings money.
Then, that it brings identity.
Then, that it brings meaning.
And finally… they no longer recognize themselves.
Narcissism is the software that transforms the initial lie into internal reality.
The person begins to live in the reflection of their own fantasy.
And when they realize it, they are already inside the spiral of decay, described by the ancients in the circles of Dante:
from pride to deceit,
from deceit to vanity,
from vanity to alienation,
from alienation to ruin.
The soul does not fall all at once.
It descends step by step.
And each step bears the same sign:
“You are shining.”
6. The theatricalization of the sacred — the apex of the age of illusions
Everything culminates in the gravest point:
the sacred turned into spectacle.
It is not merely a moral distortion.
It is a spiritual distortion.
Holiness becomes stage.
Symbol becomes advertisement.
Revelation becomes content.
Faith becomes product.
And the Spirit — silent, humble, free — is replaced by caricatures of itself.
It is the triumph of illusion over truth.
And also the prelude to a profound necessity:
to recover the gaze,
to restore consciousness,
to return depth to the sacred.
The two phenomena presented here are only initial signs of an Age of Illusions that extends far beyond religion.
It crosses politics, economics, aesthetics, morality, and even the way the human being perceives themselves in the world.
These are merely two gateways — among many — through which contemporary distortion reveals itself.
Conclusion — the silent announcement of a new chapter
This essay does not intend to close the subject.
It intends only to open the curtain.
What stands before us is vast, complex, alive.
And it demands a new kind of discernment — more humble, more profound, more attentive.
This text is only a glimpse.
A first step.
A crack through which the air of a new time enters.
A time that will require courage:
– to look beyond artificial brightness
– to perceive nuance
– to recognize pride as structure, not individual flaw
– to refuse the theatricalization of the sacred
– to restore the dignity of a living, non-performative faith
And above all, courage to walk toward the transfiguration of the gaze.
For nothing changes while the gaze remains imprisoned at the surface.
And nothing remains the same once it finally learns to see.
Escola da Transfiguração Consciente 
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