This guide supports small Ethosism reading groups, household sessions, and local practice gatherings.
The facilitator is not a priest, therapist, judge, or owner of the canon. The facilitator protects the session shape so people can read, reason, practice, and repair responsibly.
Session Shape
Use a 75-minute default.
- Opening check-in: 5 minutes
- Read one short passage: 10 minutes
- Clarify claims and terms: 10 minutes
- Apply the discernment worksheet to one concrete case: 20 minutes
- Name one practice or repair action: 15 minutes
- Closing memory: 10 minutes
- Logistics and follow-up: 5 minutes
Roles
- Facilitator: keeps time, protects boundaries, and returns claims to the text.
- Reader: reads the passage aloud.
- Scribe: records decisions, open questions, and practice commitments.
- Reality checker: asks what evidence, consequence, or affected party is missing.
- Care watcher: notices pressure, disclosure risk, and unsafe dynamics.
Ground Rules
- Speak from evidence and experience, not status.
- Do not force personal disclosure.
- Do not use the group to corner, shame, recruit, or diagnose people.
- Distinguish canon, interpretation, experiment, and personal opinion.
- Keep commitments small enough to complete.
- Bring repair back as evidence, not as performance.
Facilitator Duties
- Prepare the passage and one concrete case.
- Keep the conversation tied to observable consequences and reciprocal reasoning.
- Protect participants from coercion, grandstanding, and premature confession.
- Record open canon questions without pretending to settle them locally.
- Follow up on practice commitments at the next session.
Escalation
Pause the session or refer out when a situation involves immediate danger, abuse, self-harm risk, medical crisis, legal exposure, or a conflict of interest the group cannot responsibly hold.
Ethosism practice should increase honesty and responsibility. It should not create dependency on a facilitator or group.