In May 2026, we piloted a workshop on overcoming a prevalent structure of domination in the world—public bullying. We based the content on an essay by David Graeber called The Bully’s Pulpit, which examines this structure in diverse circumstances, from a schoolyard to a battlefield between nations. Crucially, he also discusses the setting of the internet. That’s where we’re seeing successful bullying of spiritual communities and leaders, including our own, who try to offer viable alternatives to humanity’s current trajectory of killing all life on Earth. Under such pressure, many communities either disappear or get converted back to the mainstream, so the world loses options for a different path. Because this is such a challenging and intense topic, workshop leaders honed their approaches over multiple internal sessions. I attended one where our teacher, Soryu Forall, was one of the leaders.
At one point, Forall was explaining that the way to stop such bullying does not require knowing everything about the two sides—the aggressor and the target—which is harder than most people know, and one of the myriad psychological obstacles to taking effective action. He said the key is to focus on the structure—someone is humiliating someone else in front of an audience, hoping for audience approval. If you see that, you're the one with the power to stop it, by not giving approval either explicitly, or implicitly through not getting involved. This entails expressing public disapproval.
He was about to move us on, but I raised my hand. He looked at me and asked, “You sure you have to talk now?”
I got the hint that there was much more to cover, but I nodded. Without hesitation, he said, “Okay.”
“That's what some people are accusing you and us of doing.”
“Of course they are,” he said matter-of-factly.
“That’s how a lot of people interpret it when seeing you calling someone out in public for making a mistake, then none of your other students are saying anything, so they’re letting this situation happen. How is that different?”
“Okay, we should discuss that. Do you want me to actually answer? I can do that if you want,” he said, with sincerity and not a hint of annoyance.
With certainty I replied, “Yes.”
“Okay. The power that I have—was it achieved through humiliating people in public? Or is it the case that when I humiliate people in public, I have less power, but I'm willing to do it anyway because it’s ethical, so I have to in order to be a moral actor? It's a very simple answer. I have much less power when I do that.”
Recalling the few times he did this for me, I remarked quietly, “It's interesting, but you do seem to be the vulnerable one.”
“Of course,” he continued in the same even tone. “I do it anyway because it is the right thing for the person, but I don't gain power by doing that. In the other case, people are gaining power by humiliating, say, Chief Philip [a spiritual leader and friend of our community who had been targeted].
“People here test me to see if I actually care about them, and put themselves in my care after watching. Did Chief Phillip ever put himself in the care of his online attackers, having tested their integrity? Never. That isn't how those people got power. Those people don't have power over Chief Philip because he gave it to them after coming to trust them; they have it because of the audience approval of their humiliation of him. Those are two completely different things.”
Hearing that, I felt satisfied and deeply grateful.
The workshop leaders put on a few role-plays so that participants could practice expressing public disapproval as the literal audience, and see what psychological blocks came up for them. At some point after that, when Forall was giving another leader, Renunciate Renshin, some feedback at length in real-time, I yelled playfully, “Hey! Stop picking on her!” Everyone had a good laugh.