exercise · all tools
Clearness Committee
The Quaker discernment practice: a focus person brings an important question or decision; a committee of four or five holds them for three-quarters of an hour with ONLY honest, open questions — no advice, no stories, no "have you considered". The discipline trusts that each person has an inner teacher, and that clarity is evoked, never installed.
Prerequisites
- The no-advice covenant explained until truly understood — one 'helpful suggestion' breaks the vessel
- Double confidentiality (Palmer's rule): nothing repeated afterwards, not even to the focus person unless invited
- Questions that are advice in disguise are the constant failure mode; the clerk's job is to guard the form
- An important life question held by five silent-hearted witnesses goes deep — schedule landing time
Practical
- Time
- 45-60 min + 15 landing
- Group
- 5–6 · small-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- The focus person's written statement of their question; a covenant of confidentiality
- Mechanisms
- dialogic-encounter, stillness-silence, narrative-identity
- Change scope
- state · one-off
Origin & where it lives
Quaker tradition (centuries old); contemporary codification by Parker J. Palmer (Circle of Trust) — Quaker discernment practice
Instructions: open online
In this directory via The Work That Reconnects (Joanna Macy & Molly Brown)
Related: case clinic (alternative-to)
The contemplative pole of the peer-consultation family: Case Clinic mirrors and offers, Troika advises, the Clearness Committee only asks. Its humility mapping is earned — the committee practices radical restraint of their own importance.
status: checked · added 2026-08-25