Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More
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How Jack Met Werner

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

February 8, 2023


"In Chinese art the Orchid symbolizes Love, Beauty, Elegance, Refinement, many descendants, and the perfect human being."
... 
"Many are called but few are chosen."
... Jesus Christ, quoted by Matthew the apostle
This essay, How Jack Met Werner, is the companion piece to Birth Of A Monastery: The Background On The Franklin House.

It is also the twenty ninth in an open group on People: I am indebted to Jack Rafferty who inspired this conversation and contributed material, and to Professor William Warren "Bill" Bartley III, Werner's official biographer, who contributed material.

Werner Erhard's explicit, riveting sharing of the ineffable experience of transformation he had while driving to work heading west on the Golden Gate Bridge one midweek morning in March 1971 started this conversation for transformation we're all in. He never made it to work that day. Instead he drove to Twin Peaks overlooking San Francisco, and walked there for several hours, processing what had happened. One of the things he saw that he had to do was share the experience with others. He also saw that he had to take responsibility for his own ego. The third thing he saw he had to do was clean up his life.

Returning to his staff at Mind Dynamics, a business he owned then, he told them what had happened, and of his intention to develop a vehicle to share his experience. That vehicle became the est  Training, which became the WE&A  (Werner Erhard & Associates) Forum, which became the Landmark Forum.

One of his staff members at the time was Jack Rafferty. Jack had begun working for Werner long before Werner's transformation on the Golden Gate Bridge.

I met with Jack to ask him how he originally met Werner. This is what he told me. This is Jack Rafferty:


<quote>

I USED TO SPEND A GOOD AMOUNT OF TIME IN ENRICO'S SIDEWALK CAFÉ ON BROADWAY IN SAN FRANCISCO. ENRICO BANDUCCI WAS THE OWNER. I FIRST MET HIM IN THE 50'S WHEN I WORKED AT A NIGHTCLUB CALLED "FACKS" AND HE OWNED "the hungry i", A POPULAR NIGHTCLUB IN THE NORTH BEACH NEIGHBORHOOD. IN 1968 I WAS PARTNERS IN A 600 SEAT THEATER RESTAURANT ON BROADWAY, A BLOCK AWAY FROM ENRICO'S.

ONE DAY I WALKED IN, AND ENRICO WAS SITTING AT HIS USUAL TABLE BY THE DOOR WITH A GUEST. I SAID HELLO WARMLY TO ENRICO AND POLITELY TO HIS GUEST, THEN QUICKLY TURNED BACK TO ENRICO TO SPEAK WITH HIM. BUT ENRICO STOPPED ME, ASKING IF I KNEW THE GUY HE WAS SITTING WITH WHOM HE CALLED "WERNER". "DO YOU KNOW WERNER?" HE ASKED. I SAID NO. SO ENRICO INTRODUCED US AND ASKED ME TO JOIN THEM. WE SAT AND TALKED FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR.

I IMMEDIATELY NOTICED SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT ABOUT WERNER. FOR STARTERS, HE DIDN'T HAVE A STORY. ALMOST EVERYONE HAS A STORY. THEIR STORY WILL GIVE YOU AN INSIGHT INTO HOW THEY RELATE TO LIFE.

WERNER NOT ONLY DIDN'T HAVE A STORY: HE LOOKED YOU IN THE EYE. HE PAID ATTENTION TO EVERYTHING YOU SAID. HE WAS INTERESTED RATHER THAN INTERESTING. HE WAS CURIOUS. HE COMMUNICATED DIRECTLY AND CLEARLY. I THOUGHT TO MYSELF THIS IS SOMEONE TO TAKE NOTE OF, THE KIND OF PERSON IF I SAW HIM AGAIN I WOULD BE SURE TO APPROACH.

OH, AND HE WAS PRESENT. I COULD SEE AND FEEL IT WAS HIS INTENTION TO CONNECT. HE WASN'T THERE TO IDLE CHATTER. THIS WAS SOMEONE I COULD RELATE TO.

SO THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED. THAT WAS HOW I MET HIM: I WALKED INTO ENRICO'S ... AND THERE HE WAS - JUST SITTING THERE.

LATER I WOULD BECOME HIS AIDE (DE-CAMP). IT WAS JUST A NATURAL EVOLUTION OF OUR EXPANDING RELATIONSHIP. IN RETROSPECT MY THOUGHT IS HE NEEDED AND WANTED SOMEONE AROUND WHO WASN'T A DISTRACTION, AND I CAN MAKE MY PRESENCE KNOWN, AND I KNOW WHEN TO "DISAPPEAR".

<unquote>


So that's what happened. That was how Jack met Werner: he walked into Enrico's ... and there he was - just sitting there.

The Aphorisms Book If God Had Meant Man to Fly, He Would Have Given Him Wings or: Up to Your Ass in Aphorisms Produced by Jack Rafferty
The Aphorisms Book Cover
It's not merely that Jack became one of Werner's original aide-de-camps  and an indispensable bastion of his work for decades  thereafter. It's that a lot of what he produced for Werner and contributed became iconic. For example, the aphorisms book - yes, the  aphorisms book, the "If God Had Meant Man to Fly, He Would Have Given Him Wings, or: Up to Your Ass in Aphorisms" aphorisms book which was given to every graduate of the est  Training as a personal gift from Werner as "a gesture of (my) appreciation for the space you create in (my) life by participating in est"  ... that  aphorisms book? It was produced by Jack.

If you know the book I'm talking about, you'll have noticed the quality of the paper it's printed on, and the color and heft of its cover on which an orchid is boldly embossed (in Chinese art the Orchid symbolizes Love, Beauty, Elegance, Refinement, many descendants, and the perfect human being). Those are Jack's ideas. If you've received a handwritten letter or card from Werner, you've noticed the quality, color, and heft of the paper and its envelope is just extraordinary. Those are Jack's ideas too. He has an uncanny, remarkable eye for paper (yes, paper), the impression it makes on people, and the experience of Werner it conveys. As a result Werner asked that anything printed by est, both the wording and the paper it was printed on, be vetted first by Jack.

I met Werner about ten years after Jack did. Everyone meeting Werner has a unique experience of him and the impact he invariably has in their life. So its appropriate that the circumstances  in which I met Werner were unlike Jack's (how could they not be?). But what was the same (maybe it's true to say it's the same for anyone meeting him) is the experience of the je ne sais quoi  he has. Whatever it is, I wanted to be around it. Whatever he has, I wanted it.

And Jack was there before the beginning, before we all knew Werner as Werner, and ten years before I had any inkling what all this heralded for my future.


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