Exhibits

English subtitles, as they appear in the clip

“OK, complaints were received about Dez, and it got to a level where in 2019 the governance decided to stop him from teaching.

And as of now the decision is that he won’t enter an accountability process even if he wants to, and that he is unfit for teaching students. Maybe he is fit for teaching teachers or apprentices, but he is simply unfit for teaching students — as far as the council and the lead circle of ISTA are concerned.

And it’s difficult for him and it hurts him terribly. It’s frustrating. I wouldn’t want to see him teaching students. At the same time, level 1 is a genius creation of his, some parts of it only he understands, and I would support him teaching apprentices the way he understands the essence of level 1 — it’s very smart.

But what sometimes characterises a generation of founders — there are things he doesn’t see. And his adaptation to a trauma-informed field doesn’t seem possible. And there is total opposition.”

Speaker: Michal Maayan Don, ISTA lead facilitator. “Dez” is Robert Nichols, known as Baba Dez, ISTA’s founder. The text above reproduces the English subtitles burned into the clip; the spoken audio is Hebrew. For completeness: the on-screen subtitles do not caption every sentence. One further remark, spoken between “only he understands” and “I would support him teaching apprentices,” is not subtitled — an independent machine translation of the Hebrew renders it as “I am very happy that I was able to learn from him directly.” We include it because leaving out a favourable line would misrepresent the clip. If you believe any part of this is inaccurate, please tell us.

English subtitles, as they appear in the clip

“A topic that is still hot here, in my opinion — Louise… was released from ISTA without any process.

There was a moment where there was a very clear agreement in the Lead circle that we don’t want to deal with this, and that it’s wrong, and that was it. There simply was a moment like that.

We can argue whether or not it happened a year too late, and it happened at a right moment as far as I’m concerned.

I feel like a family here and I’m connected to the entire journey with Louise.”

Speaker: Michal Maayan Don, ISTA lead facilitator. “Louise” is Louise Claire. The text above reproduces the English subtitles burned into the clip; the spoken audio is Hebrew, and the subtitles do not caption every sentence. If you believe any part of this is inaccurate, please tell us.

English subtitles, as they appear in the clip

“We decided to change the affinity. We are no longer admitting all the graduates to the community wall on Facebook — only if they ask. We are not even offering it as of now.

There’s no place where ISTA graduates are poured into at the moment, but it’s the community’s choice. You can say, ah… bring them in, we want them.

Fresh meat.”

Speaker: Michal Maayan Don, ISTA lead facilitator. The clip carries both Hebrew and English subtitles; the Hebrew original is below.

Transcript

“You know, personally, I guess I became famous enough to be projected all the shit of the world at. And like, those people who came on the chat was kind of writing and, you know, projecting all onto us.

It’s a beautiful spiritual practice to say — not to say like ‘no, I’m not,’ but to say ‘yeah, you know, there is.’

Of course, I never raped anyone, you know, physically. But do I have a shadow of a rapist? Yeah.”

Speaker: Ohad Pele Ezrahi. Recorded 30 July 2023 during a Zoom lecture that was free and open to the public by registration. This is a 35-second excerpt from a longer session — he is responding to remarks made in the session’s chat. Transcribed by istaAwareness.life from the clip’s audio, and published without interpretation: he denies raping anyone, and readers can weigh his wording for themselves. His own fullest response to the criticism directed at him is the Accountability Public Statement published by ISTA in February 2024. If Mr Ezrahi wishes to add context or request a correction, please contact us.

Transcript

“There are other organizations that have made it a policy that, under certain agreements and containers, the teachers will engage sexually. They are open with engaging sexually with their students, and they announce that at the beginning of the class, and everybody in there is a consenting adult. But there are other people who take up the [unclear] and say these people are evil — like, why? What’s going on over here?

And something else. One of the reasons that some organizations — which I’m part of one of them — say that we may do this, is because we found that in spiritual organizations, in church-based, faith-based organizations, they say they’re not going to do it, and then it’s shadowy and they do it — like priests in the Catholic church. They do it.

And so we’re saying there’s an element of being a human being that can’t be overlooked. Rather than say we’re not going to do it, and then they do it behind, in secrecy — right? — when it’s not going to take place in shadow.”

Speaker: Laurie Handlers, ISTA lead facilitator, director and vice-president. Transcribed by istaAwareness.life from the clip’s audio; a second voice is briefly audible agreeing. “[unclear]” marks a word we could not resolve with confidence. Captions for this clip are available via the video player. If you believe any part of this transcript is inaccurate, please tell us.