The orchestrated Marc Gafni smear campaign began in the early fall of 2015. Stephen Dinan, CEO of the Shift Network, was angry at Barbara Marx Hubbard for refusing to “work under him” in fulfilling her vision of a planetary awakening event in 2020. Instead, she had enrolled Marc Gafni and the Center for Integral Wisdom as partners in the event.

On September 15th, Dinan rebuked Barbara “harshly” in a public forum on account of Marc’s involvement. Soon after, he began forwarding to Barbara old and already-refuted information about past allegations against Marc. Barbara implored Dinan to meet with Marc and check evidence, but he adamantly refused.

In early October, Dinan put Barbara in touch with Chaya Lester and David Ingber, his primary partners in this campaign and the folks who were central actors or organizers of the 2006 false complaints in Israel. All of this was an attempt by Dinan to undermine Barbara’s teaching collaboration with Marc. It did not work, so a New York Times columnist, known for taking down spiritual teachers, was enrolled, and the smear campaign was put into motion on December 24th.