Fulfilling a promise I made to Werner Erhard at 2:00am one morning in
1979 in the kitchen of his San Francisco home, the
Franklin House,
I went to
South Africa,
and over the course of a year led the first series of ten guest
seminars around the country in the major cities causing the first one
thousand enrollments in
South Africa
which
inexorably
started
Werner's work
there.
Out of a promise of this nature, you may well imagine that any of a
number of things might have happened. This is what actually did happen.
And while I am not the story of my life, this conversation accounts for
and tells that story. If, indeed, a story must be told at all, then I
intend to support it being told accurately.
It's not that I hit the ground running because I didn't. If anything, I
hit the ground sitting. Upon arrival in Cape Town where I had completed
my university education nine years earlier, the first thing I did was
visit family and look up old friends. We sat around talking. I had no
strategy for what was about to happen. Rather, that seemed to unfold
... just in the process of life itself ...
People said to me: "You're different than when we last saw you", and
"Something has changed about you", and "What happened to you? You seem
open and at peace".
Gradually I started to share about this guy I met (Werner Erhard) and
this thing I did (the est training). In the United States
where everyone has access to
Werner's work,
an already healthy level of skepticism had built up. But in 1979 in
South Africa,
cloistered as it was by the fetters of apartheid, the listening for
transformation was acute. Enrollment was an easy, delightful process.
A book written by Luke Rhinehart called The Book of est was quite well
known in
South Africa,
so there already was some sense of the form
Werner's work
took. But book knowledge is one thing. Having someone willing to share
from first hand experience was something else entirely. Soon I started
receiving invitations to share
Werner's work
with home groups.
Through one of those home meetings, I was introduced to Margaretha van
der Meijden. Margaretha, a bold, strapping woman, completed the
est training and a three months' assisting agreement in
the United States before returning to
South Africa
in November 1977. Margaretha shared with me her intention to make
Werner's work
available
in Cape Town which later developed into her creation of a transformed
space for people. She'd set up a graphics supply store she called
"est graphics" (a greeting on a glass panel said "Hi! This
is it!"). Margathetha had also produced three
The Hunger Project
exhibitions there and had shared her experience of
Werner's work
with those of her family and friends who cared to listen (as well as
with those who didn't), enrolling many of them.
After a meeting in Margaretha's "est graphics", we
contacted the major evening newspaper, the Cape Argus. Steve Shapiro, a
reporter,
interviewed
us. The result was a full page article in the widely read Saturday
weekend edition magazine titled "somewhere between
east and west" (all lower case) with the letters "e", "s",
and "t" in both the words "east" and "west" cleverly highlighted.
I had scheduled to share my experience with a group at the home of a
friend. We were expecting seven people.
Anticipating
an expanded interest as a result of Steve's article we changed the
venue of the home introduction to a room at the Hohenort Hotel in
Constantia. Steve graciously included the new location in the coverage
of his
interview.
At the Hohenort Hotel event, we expected the original seven guests
plus, maybe, a few more who had read the article. Two hundred and sixty
seven people showed up. Things would never be the same after that.
A whirlwind month later, Sandy Robins, another reporter from the Cape
Argus, called me. She said that the Cape Argus would like to publish
another article about est in the widely read weekend edition, this time
in the women's section. The article would be titled "Est is ..." (I
would have preferred a lower case "e"). Sandy asked me if I would mind
being
interviewed
by her.
Would I?
Anticipating
even more expanded interest as a result of the second full page article
we changed the venue of the next home introduction this time to a room
at the Newlands Hotel in Newlands. Sandy (who, by the way, was totally
enrolled and got it completely) also graciously included the new
location in the coverage of her
interview.
At the Newlands Hotel event, we expected the original six guests plus,
maybe, a few more who had read the article. One hundred and fifty three
people showed up. Now the thing had a life all of its own, and we could
not have purchased better advertising even if we had tried to.
There was a consideration about presenting
Werner's work
in
South Africa
in those days: apartheid. It would not have been appropriate to
segregate
Werner's work.
Yet delivering it to so called "mixed" audiences would have been
illegal. During the guest seminars I led, one of the most important
functions assigned to an assistant was to be on watch in the parking
lot outside the venue in case we were raided by "BOSS", the so
called "Bureau Of State Security" for contravening the apartheid laws
since almost all our introductory events drew people of all races.
Fortunately no such eventuality occurred. Ironically, on another
occasion four years later in September of 1981, I enrolled the Chief of
Police of Plettenberg Bay in the possibility
Werner's work
is.
Regarding apartheid, we did not yet have the language of possibility in
those days. Yet when we managed assistants meetings or spoke what
Werner's work
could provide, we asked people what they would want out of it. Almost
everyone in one form or another said "the end of apartheid". Now that
apartheid has ended, did we cause that?
Nelson Mandela
(whose grandchildren are now
graduates
of
Werner's work)
when referring to the end of apartheid in
South Africa,
correctly said: "Nothing of what happened in
South Africa
was the work of any one individual. The transformation of
South Africa
came out of a partnership between many, many people.". So did we cause
that? I prefer to say we said it would happen. That was our stand
coming from transformation. We said it would happen. And look what
happened.
Between the twin successes of the Hohenort Hotel event and the Newlands
Hotel event, Margaretha introduced me to her sister Iona Hearn and her
fiance James Clow who were also visiting
South Africa
from California and who were both
graduates
of the GSLP, the Guest Seminar Leaders
Program, the forerunner of the ILP, the
Introduction Leaders Program. Before meeting Iona
and James, I shared my experience mostly out of my relationship with
Werner. To be sure, that
worked
well. Brilliantly, in fact - even if I have to say it myself. But once
Iona and James drove me to the top of a sheer cliff overlooking the
beautiful False Bay on the south side of the Cape Peninsula and had me
deliver my seminar at full volume and at high speed to the
seagulls
flying by, I realized a new power source in my delivery: my Self. I am
indebted to Iona and James for making that available to me. What was
already a powerful sharing became even more powerful as a result of
their coaching.
Some days I spent hours on the telephone speaking with people, sharing
Werner's work
with them, enrolling them, answering questions. There was no
resistance.
The time for open listening in
South Africa
had started. It was truly an epic time. One morning I got on the phone
at about 8:00am intending to spend five minutes in conversation with
one person. One thing led to another, and by the time I hung up at
3:30pm that afternoon, I had enrolled forty five people, each being
recommended by the previous one. I drove my car to the road that runs
along the face of Table Mountain known as Tafelberg Road ("Tafelberg"
is how you say Table Mountain in Afrikaans, the local language) where I
walked for an hour or so looking out over Cape Town known by the
ancient mariners as "the fairest Cape in all the world" contemplating
what a future of transformation in
South Africa
would look like.
On a whim I took the Mensa test which I aced. Coming into contact with
the Mensa Society was a lot of fun and, given their literally mind
boggling intelligence, a challenge. Of course I shared my experience of
Werner and his work
with them too. In order to give my remarks some
context,
I described Werner as an American
Zen
master and his work as living
Zen
without the b.s. The Mensa Society loved that and invited me
to present a seminar for them which I did. About twenty people
attended, and the conversation was rapt and lively. I spoke with them
about
Zen
and
Werner's work
which is also the subject of another essay in this collection,
Zen And Werner's Work.
What fascinated the Mensa Society most was the
moment Werner became
enlightened
or, to use the term Werner prefers, transformed. Werner has said that
"enlightenment" has an eastern connotation which he does not require.
He prefers the term
"transformation"
and doesn't refer to what happened to him as enlightenment.
I knew of no better way to share
that moment
with them than to read the electrifying coverage of it verbatim from
Professor William (Bill)
Warren Bartley III's
official biography of Werner titled
"Werner Erhard: The
Transformation of a Man - The Founding ofest".
I sat in front of the room raised up on a bar stool reading from the
chapter named "True Identity" in part III of the book,
"Transformation".
There, in an account called "Once Upon A Freeway", Werner generously
shares the
exact moment
he got it -
the Big "IT".
As Bill said, "somewhere between Corte Madera and the Golden Gate
Bridge, the man in the car on the freeway was transformed" (Werner
later specified the exact location as on the Golden Gate Bridge
itself). It was a priceless moment. There I was reading to
some of the most brilliant minds on
the planet
who were listening to every word of that extraordinary account with
jaw-dropped amazement. You could have heard a pin drop.
Speaking of Bill's biography, it proved to be the most useful source
document and reference book I could have asked for, out there at the
southernmost tip of Africa thousands of miles away from the
Franklin House.
I read it and re-read it repeatedly, looking up explanations of
concepts and historical facts to supplement my answers to questions
fascinated people were asking. Another source of reference material
during those halcyon days was Werner himself. I stayed in contact with
him by tape recording every guest seminar I led and mailing the
cassette to him to critique. He responded by mail, answering my
questions, trusting me to come from my experience. That trust, in and
of itself, empowered me to look into my own space to determine what to
do next. Werner did not simply give me a recipe to cook up. In fact, he
pulled back from doing that if I asked him "how to" questions. Rather,
the complex support space he created for me by correspondence alone
enabled me to see for myself how things would
work
best. Not only did that set the stage for the introduction of
Werner's work
to and the
transformation
of
South Africa
but it also changed my life forever. It is a space that I have lived
from ever since. It drives, directs, and guides every aspect of my
life. It did then and it does today.
There was no structure for support in
South Africa
then. If I didn't create it, there wasn't going to be one. I am not a
graduate
of any
leadership
program. I got what I got by being around Werner. I knew that all I had
to do was to get up to the front of the room, be with people, open my
mouth, and speak. I was often the last one to find out what was going
to happen in my seminars. Like everyone else, I found out how my
seminars turned out by listening. I trusted the process. I counted on
it
working
- which it did, time after time after time. I never prepared or
followed notes. There did not seem to be any need. Nothing was
calculated. There was no strategy. And it
worked.
Usually I spoke for an hour standing, then took questions or conducted
a process, like asking the group to recall the first time they remember
being upset. Then I would ask them to recall the time they were upset
before that, and then the time they were upset before that etc. It was
a very basic process designed to give them a sense of what an
originating incident is and how the decisions they made about it have
shaped their
epistemology
and their lives subconsciously ever since. A man came up to me at the
end of a seminar at the Newlands Hotel and said to me in a thick "boer"
accent: "You spoke for an hour. I didn't understand anything you said.
Whatever you've got, I want it.".
The Newlands Hotel was the venue for three more guest seminars, and it
was no longer necessary to have full page articles in a major newspaper
to publicize them. What sufficed instead were small ads in the
classified section: "est guest seminar with Laurence Platt, Saturday
night, Newlands Hotel, telephone 64-3468". That was it. Anywhere
between fifty and a hundred people responded to each announcement and
showed up.
Another publication to which I owe a debt of gratitude for making our
intention known is Odyssey published by Jill Iggleden. Simone Williams
interviewed
me for Odyssey. Simone knew I had practiced
meditation and yoga
in earlier years. She asked some brilliant questions about the
distinction between them and
Werner's work.
Actually there are no valid comparisons.
Meditation and yoga
are
meditation and yoga,
and
Werner's work
is
Werner's work.
But what came out in the
interview
was very useful and struck a chord with a lot of people, and it was
this:
When I practiced
Meditation and yoga,
what I had in mind was to get somewhere. I considered
meditation and yoga
to be a path I was on, and if I practiced enough, I
believed I would get to the end of that path which I believed would be
a better place than where I was. From participating in
Werner's work
people get clear This Is It! There's no place to get to.
You are already here.
The train has already
reached the station.
So rather than practicing
meditation and yoga
all the while trying to get somewhere else, I practiced
meditation and yogawhile practicing
meditation and
yoga.
This is a
contextual shift.
Simone got that brilliantly and made it the focus of her
interview
which caused seventy guests at my next guest seminar.
The way I handled registration was to invite people to sign their
commitment to participate in
Werner's work
when it was delivered in it's full form in
South Africa
in a book which I carried around with me wherever I went. At that time
the closest real offering of
Werner's work
was in
London
England, eight thousand miles away. It is said that if the mountain
will not come to Mohammed then Mohammed must go to the mountain. Some
people were unwilling to wait for a real offering of
Werner's work
to come to
South Africa,
and nor were they willing to wait for apartheid to end which would open
the space for a real offering of
Werner's work
to be available in
South Africa.
They opted instead to travel to
London
immediately to participate in
Werner's work
there. One of them, a fellow by the name of Craig Houseman, sent me a
postcard from
London
which simply said: "I did it. I got nothing out of it. It was worth
every penny. Thank You.". To this day as far as I know, eight thousand
miles may still be the longest distance anyone has traveled anywhere on
the planet
specifically to participate in
Werner's work
for the first time.
I was invited by the Theosophical Society of
South Africa
to address them. The invitation was caused by a member who attended a
guest seminar. I enjoyed being with them. Forty people were present.
Theosophy is a synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy. Into
that listening I shared
Werner's work.
The ensuing conversation was delightful and fresh about the religion of
religion - "meta religion" may be a better way of saying that. I shared
with them my own religion and how my religion is two feet eleven and
three quarter inches long in a life that is three feet long. I shared
that what kept me stuck in my own religion was that I believed it very
fervently. Until I experienced transformation, there was no distinction
for me of direct experience. In a religion that is two feet eleven and
three quarter inches long in a three foot life, transformation is that
final quarter inch. They got from my sharing that
Werner's work
is not a religion and that their own religious experiences would be
greatly expanded once they could see where they believed their own
religious experiences to death. I shared with them that when I was able
to simply let my experience be, I began to have direct experiences
which are arguably the ones written about in the holy books and which -
in spite of ourselves - we then believe. We mistake the menu for the
steak. All the great spiritual and religious masters are simply people
who found out that this is it! The Theosophical Society presentation
was one of my favorites. I really loved being with that group. They
listened like sponges. They wanted everything I had.
I led guest seminars in Johannesburg, Durban, and Plettenberg Bay
paying my own airfare yet never wanting for accommodation. All told I
enrolled the first thousand people into the possibility of
Werner's work
and real, thrilling, alive transformation in
South Africa.
The first presentation of the
Landmark Forum
in
South Africa.
would have to wait until the apartheid era was over. I don't think
anyone would have been enrolled in the idea of presenting one of
Werner's trainings for white people, and another separate training for
non-white people. Bear in mind that in those days, a
non-white person in
South Africa
was simply someone who was not a white person. That means
that people of mixed race were considered to be non-white,
Indian
people were considered to be non-white, Chinese people were
considered to be non-white, Black people were certainly
considered to be non-white, but Japanese people were considered
to be honorary white. Go figure.
Until apartheid ended (as we said it would out of our stand for the
transformation of
South Africa),
I continued to enroll people around the world in the possibility of
Werner's work
as
transformation
in
South Africa
I created an international group which I called The Friends of the
Landmark Forum
in
South Africa.
whom I sourced, communicated with, and coached by national and
international telephone calls, by mail and by e-mail. In as many
conversations I had as possible, I asked people to listen for the
possibility of the
Landmark Forum
in
South Africa.
By the time the first
Landmark Forum
was delivered in
South Africa,
the Friends of the
Landmark Forum
in
South Africa
one thousand strong.
Someone whom I enrolled in the possibility of
Werner's work
in
South Africa
said: "Laurence has reached out and touched the whole world". I don't
consider I did anything special. Sooner or later someone would have
done exactly what I did. I was just fortunate enough to have been the
first. There's nothing personal about transformation. You can stand for
it but you can't claim it as your own. Transformation is a distinctly
human property, the possibility of Being for all human beings, and I
knew once I heard it call me I would do something with it. I like it
that I was the first on the ground in
South Africa
with
Werner's work.
I own that expression. But if it hadn't taken that specific form it
would have taken another one. And if it wasn't me it would have surely
been someone else.
As I said right in the beginning, there never was any strategy for
this. I had no ulterior motive for doing it. Truth be told I didn't
share
Werner's work
in order to accomplish anything, like the end of apartheid for example
although I didn't hear too many people complain when that did happen
just as we said it would. I shared
Werner's work.
for the joy of sharing
Werner's work.
Actually, to be specific, what I shared was my relationship with Werner
and how inside of our relationship new possibilities for being call me
powerfully into being and new openings for action call me powerfully
into action. I heard that call and I called back. That's what enrolled
people. That's what introduced
Werner's work
to
South Africa
in 1979.
Follow Through
The following communications are reproduced from my archives in the
original form in which they first appeared. I created them in the
United States to provide a powerful support for the people currently
generating and participating in
Werner's work
in
South Africa.
For convenience of delivery I designed them as websites which were then
printed by friends and partners in
South Africa
who included them in the folders of paperwork given to each participant
in their meetings.
