Dolores Richter
History
of The Forum
Project Meiga
began as a research project committed to the spirit of experimentation,
but both in content and method lying well outside the purview
of institutionalised science. The project was conceived
as interdisciplinary life research in biology, physics,
medicine and psychology designed to re-integrate the fragmentation
in all parts of life that permeates modern society. It was
very soon realised that this kind of radical research could
only be done rigorously and systematically in the laboratory
of communal living and working.
Professor Dieter
Duhm was the initiator of this social experiment in holistic
life research which from the very beginning focused on the
basic issues that invariably arise out of humans living
together. Thus the nature of love, forms of relationship,
the origin of jealousy, conflicts about authority, and concepts
of raising children came under the social microscope. Identifying
basic human longings and needs, investigating the roots
of latent fear and violence, examining what constitutes
disease and healing, finding ways to optimise nutrition
and raise energy, all became grist for the experimental
mill. The project enquired as well into the source of life
energy (God), meaning and goals for life, examined creation
theories, and attempted to evaluate possible long-term directions
for evolution in the history of mankind.
The Forum developed
out of a need for a process to study safely these kinds
of fundamental social questions. In the course of time it
became one of the most essential institutions both to investigate
the topics of interest, and to build the strong community
vehicle necessary to contain the energy released by these
experiments in living.
There has recently
been an interest from other communities to use the forum
as a "method" for building interpersonal structures strong
enough to withstand the conflicts that arise out of living
and working together. To assist their work we began to offer
Forum courses and seminars. This working paper attempts
to compile some of our experiences of the last 15 years
and to distil some principles and guidelines from them so
as to maximise the chances for the success of a Forum created
away from Zegg. The formulated rules and forms cannot be
used in a rigid and fixed way. Through actual experience
a group grows in competence and unity and eventually it
leaves the rules behind in the way a child learning to ride
a bicycle eventually leaves the training wheels behind.
Indeed, the higher the common energy, trust and the dedication
to truth in the group, the less rules and fixed forms you
need. Once understood well and internalised, the forms become
a kind of ceremony that raises the energy and magic of the
moment.
This working
paper constitutes descriptive literature about the Forum.
It is not prescriptive because the Forum is not a technique
or method that can be learned systematically and used anywhere
under any conditions whatsoever. A meaningful Forum needs
a mental-spiritual basis of unity and a communal realm of
experience informed by living human values such as trust,
truth, love, home, solidarity and responsibility. The forum
is designed to work with people who are living together,
sharing a common vision and who are committed to certain
values. The more I feel committed to that vision and those
core values the more I will feel committed to working in
the Forum with the individuals of my group. Thus a Forum
wouldn't work for a short term therapy group, although it
might work in a business with the committed people.
What is Forum
A central and
essential value for the Forum is trust. And there are two
distinct but complementary fields of behaviour in every
community that must be sharply separated before people can
trust each other or not. The community must make a clear
differentiation between problem solving involving information
and factual discussions, versus a process designed to aid
transparency of ideas and intentions. In both fields questions
of power, money, sex and love will invariably arise. If
these issues are not transparent, paranoias, distrust and
alienations arise which will invariably undermine the community’s
problem solving ability. The Forum is thus a critical process
for ensuring the transparency so essential to the community.
It is there that we reveal our patterns in power and decision
making, where we lay bare what is happening in our love-lives,
where we bring to awareness our real intentions, where both
the light and the dark get their due.
The Forum constitutes
an artistic way of organising sharings, a stage for whatever
is happening inside ourselves. Here one's true motivations,
one's deep feelings, longings, ideas and emotions become
public. This focus on transparency, sharing and clarifying
unsolved situations of daily life make it an invaluable
catalyst for one's own growth. But the Forum is also a unique
kind of research model for the study of what constitutes
a human being. Because we believe that each one’s personal
issues are exemplars of a general human issue, the Forum
elevates these personal issues, by putting them onto a common
human stage shared with general social issues like money,
war, love, violence and power. The individual in the Forum
is reassured by knowing that what he or she brings up is
true for many.
In order to create
this transcendence the individuals making up a Forum sit
in a circle. One person who is "working" or "presenting"
goes into the middle of the circle as though going onto
a stage. So the "actor" holds centre stage and the others
form the audience. The actor gets the full attention of
the group, with the power and the space to speak and act
without being interrupted by the others who initially play
the role of spectators.
When the "actor"
has finished, then others can step into the middle to give
feedback and express what they perceived. Now the actor
can learn what others think about him and what they have
to say which supplements, broadens and sharpens the personal
issue he brought forward. The discovery of what others think
and value about us, what perhaps keeps them from loving
us, what meaning we have for them provides the essential
social feedback and clarity that shapes us as social beings.
Each Forum, the
length of which is agreed in advance, usually about 90 minutes,
is guided by a facilitator whose task is to direct the presentation
to bring out the general character of the personal issue.
Thus each and every Forum becomes a learning process for
all present. The facilitator alone may intervene in the
presenter’s process, sometimes to confuse the presenter,
sometimes to interrupt or to divert him if he or she gets
stuck in repetitive thought trains. It doesn't make sense
to allow somebody to speak forever if the personal drama
becomes too drawn out and boring. Transparency is served
when the person in the middle finds out about this boredom
arising in his listeners. The facilitator has sensed that
people were passively listening and silently thinking how
boring is the story. Can the presenter be thankful for the
intervention that brought to light the effect his words
were having on his audience?
The more knowledge
one has about one's own habitual patterns of thinking and
behaving the faster one can perceive them in others and
intervene in a supportive way. The facilitator who doesn’t
feel love and acceptance for the actor probably should resist
intervening. Thus we see that the qualities of a facilitator
include a high awareness of ones own emotional character,
motives, thought forms and feelings. The skilful facilitator
possesses a broad human knowledge, a high social consciousness
and a deep sense of responsibility. At the same time the
facilitator remains merely the member of the group who has
taken on the temporary role of directing the Forum process.
You could accurately characterise the facilitator as a channel
focalising the energies, issues and processes. To some extent
that does mean directing and shaping the process. Nevertheless,
the facilitator has no answers, proffers no solutions, but
rather remains in the role of a "focaliser", asking questions
to bring out and broaden the issue, mirroring the actor
in a way that opens up the issue, reveals connections, and
connects with the vitality.
Before beginning
of Forum it is important that everyone in the circle delegate
to the facilitator total trust to direct the process. So
the circle, which contains the potential actors for the
session, gives the facilitator the power to invite the presenter
to sing a song, to stand on one’s head, to be a chicken...be
whatever the facilitator intuits would be helpful for breaking
a habitual pattern. And the facilitator can only fulfil
this role faithfully when the full trust of the entire circle
is given. And that trust must extend to the actor who sets
aside questions about the direction of the facilitating.
For all this conferred power, the facilitator is not above
the group; he or she remains a member of the community and
can be questioned and or criticised after the Forum. Only
when the focaliser enjoys the full trust of the group can
the high energy emerge which makes it possible to break
through old habits in a co-operative, creative and playful
flow.
The Forum is
not primarily aiming at the solution of an issue. Rather
it is about making the essence of the issue visible. You
could say, accurately, that it is about seeing what is,
because seeing is loving. When we see the core essence of
a person a feeling of love that transcends personal sympathy
wells up in us. The ideal of the Forum is to bring out the
beauty of the person revealing their highest potential.
Often the Forum
is also about sorting out the different factors and feelings
that have an impact on the situation. The solution of an
issue more often than not turns out to be a letting go.
So first there is an understanding and then there is the
releasing of an attachment. This letting go never happens
by attacking the issue directly. It is more likely to occur
by taking a playful detour which at first sometimes seems
to lead away from the solution. Perhaps I am in pain about
the jealousy I feel when my friend has gone to another,
and the facilitator directs me to sing a song. The Forum
wants to lift the energy level, wants to trigger the life
force and its expression. When the energy can be successfully
raised a change of perspective on both the body and soul
level happens. Sometimes this energy shift can be very simple,
as when the facilitator invites the actor to move faster,
or to exaggerate gestures, or to put a sound to the feeling.
When the energy shifts, a new position may often be discovered
from where the solution of the problem can develop. In this
sense the Forum aims at change in the moment, leading to
liberation of the actor and the group.
Facilitating
is far from a neutral moderation because the values underlying
the Forum imply a partisan position . Forum supports what
is authentic, alive and true. It supports what comes into
the light beyond politeness and the daily games of hiding
and disguise. We have become so used to hiding our feelings
that we often lose touch with them. We laugh when we feel
like crying, we reject those whom we desire the most, we
say no where we feel yes, and yes where we mean no. In the
Forum we experiment with different sides of ourselves to
find out how they feel when they are given permission to
speak . So you might go to one corner and speak from one
voice inside yourself, and then go and stand in another
corner and speak from another, perhaps opposite, voice inside
yourself. Theatrical suggestions can shift the energy sufficiently
for a thought buried deep inside to be expressed.
Just by stepping
into the Forum, inviting witnesses to your process, and
making that commitment to trust and authenticity, you begin
to discover flexibility and ease in dealing with your own
emotions. Through playing different roles and possibilities
of behaviour, for example, one may discover that being angry
with someone is just a surface emotion. At another level
you may discover that the deeper wish you didn't dare to
express is one of a closer connection. As soon as one comes
into contact with a deeper need and finds a way to express
it and have it heard, the anger disappears.
Trying out different
ways of behaviour and theatrically acting out emotional
processes is an important step toward dis-identification.
I come to see that I am not this anger, I am not this fear,
I am not this jealousy. The way I am thinking and reacting
at the moment is actually only one possibility out of many.
To lose identification with these passing states means that
you have found an inner position of witnessing what is going
on, of standing back from it. You have found your unchanging
centre. In that place you find yourself no longer attached
to the seemingly so important plans, needs, fears and calculations
that are present in this particular moment and which will
be replaced by a host of new ones in another moment. That
insight allows an easier and more playful stance. From the
witness position you do not project the experiences of the
past into the future, you are no longer tied to the restrictions
of the ego and your intelligence is freed to act. For example,
when your partner or your lover makes plans that do not
include you, and you react with fears of abandonment from
the past, in that moment you are totally identified with
this fear of loss. Then in the forum as you express your
worry and your sadness through some theatrical performance,
that very expression brings you back to your own joy and
humour of existence. You dis-identify from that fear and
are able to see that behaviour of your lover or partner
is simply his or her true path in the moment, and you can
be the detached witness from it.
This kind of
work leads us to our core, our inner truth, to expression
freed from hiding and pretence. The stage that is the Forum
is above all about truth. Not truth as a moral category,
but what shows up when we listen deep inside and allow ourselves
to trust others. The truth that emerges when it no longer
makes sense to maintain fences and wear masks.
What comes to
the surface when we begin working in Forum is not always
nice. In the beginning, the suppressed and the hidden emerge
into the light of awareness. However, an effective and skilful
Forum will bring out the dark side with humour, or in some
other theatrical way so that it can be enjoyed. The group
learns to express fear, competition, envy, jealousy, and
malice as theatre on the stage of the forum. Keeping these
patterns and feelings buried underground pollutes the environment.
At the same time,
the Forum should not be misused as a dumping place for undigested
emotions. There is no substitute for each individual’s ongoing
inner work, nor is can the Forum replace the community’s
need to evolve it’s standards, values, guidelines for behaviour,
it’s vision.
For the Forum
to make sense, the development of a life and love culture
in which truth is highly valued is essential. Whether what
one showed in Forum was nice, whether it was malicious,
whether you showed the light or the shadow sides of yourself,
all has to come from inside without pretence. When essence
comes through it will always evoke love, because all things
expressed with truth and honesty evoke love in those that
take part in this process.
The Forum
is a school, one devoted to the exploration of Life. Sometimes
you will be surprised what you say when you step fully into
the role of the actor in the centre of the Forum and the
process begins to flow. You are surprised, from what you
see in yourself and from what you see in others, to discover
the complexity of the human phenomenon. You may see as in
a kaleidoscope its beauty, its potential, its confusions
and its violence. In Forum you may experience the echoes
of human history reflected though the experience of different
individuals. All these discoveries pave the way to change
and development. Doubtless the path to social consciousness,
compassion and contact requires an inner metamorphosis and
Forum, because it is simultaneously personal and social,
has the power to bring this about in us. As Dieter Duhm
has put it, this metamorphosis
...means
that love and hatred are freed from their mutual embrace,
that one feels no fear when one needs to fight, and
no inhibitions when devotion is called for. It means
that one does no force a smile when one would rather
cry or scream, that one learns to differentiate between
love and the need for someone to lean on, between
a yes that stems from the heart and a yes that stems
from the fear of being rejected. It means that one
no longer confuses one's lover with one's mother or
father; that one does not confuse feeling of sympathy
with empathy, or the rage over being personally hurt
with the indignation against the destroyers of life,
and one's own cowardice with tolerance.
(Toward a new culture, 1996, p. 36.)
In the Zegg community
we have learned to limit the Forum to the area of emotional
issues. When we want to problem solve, plan, or discuss
factual decisions that concern the whole community we do
that in a large group session we call the Plenary. The Forum
remains a platform for the emotional, sexual and personal
processes that concern the community or the individual and
is not concerned with intellectual problem solving.
The residents
of Zegg meet once or twice a week for a Plenary. Additionally,
they meet at least once for a Forum and once for a Sunday
"matinee." The matinee is a sharing in which individuals
present their ideas about goals and visions for the community.
They may also share ideas about political events, historical
perspectives suggest goals for personal development or float
ecological or pedagogical proposals. This is an intellectual
platform, one we value highly for keeping alive and developing
further the vision around which the community came together.
If a community wants a strong supporting human basis, then
its members need both a deep understanding of one for another,
and a living vision which goes beyond the personal desires
of the individuals which make it up. So the Forum, the Plenary
and the Matinee complement each other.
Further ad hoc
meetings that build community occur depending on interest
and need of the individual living and working groups. Should
anyone have a conflict with his or her work team, they can
call a Forum. Indeed, anyone can call a Forum at any time,
on any issue sufficiently charged and significantly interesting
to attract a group and a willing focaliser, who can be emotionally
neutral on the issue.
ZEGG
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