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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The Intended Result

Cowboy Cottage Cattle Pasture, East Napa, California, USA

April 24, 2025

I am indebted to Professor William Warren "Bill" Bartley III, Werner's official biographer, who inspired this conversation.

The body of work on this website comprises two parts:

1) SHARED EXPERIENCES OF WERNER (IN PERSON, FACE TO FACE):

• conversations with

• experiences of

• encounters with

• questions for

• visits with

and more;

2) SHARED IDEAS FROM, AND MATERIAL ABOUT WERNER (TRANSCRIBED, PUBLISHED):

• Werner Erhard Paper Experience

• Werner Erhard Photo Experience

• Werner Erhard Quote Experience

• Werner Erhard Slide Experience (aka "Werner in India")

• Werner Erhard Video Experience

and more, including what's arguably the pièce de résistance of this website's entire downloadable content: your free copy of the only authorized biography ever written about Werner titled Werner Erhard - The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est by Professor William Warren "Bill" Bartley III. Making Werner widely available through this website and its content, is the intended result. It's this website's raison d'etre. It's my gift to you and it's all yours now.

There's really nothing else. There's no other agenda, no sinister ulterior motive. Oh, wait: there is something else. There's more. There is a part three. It's:

3) NEARLY TWO THOUSAND OF MY ESSAYS INSPIRED BY WERNER'S IDEAS, PUBLISHED TO THIS WEBSITE REGULARLY, SOLELY WITH THE INTENTION OF KEEPING PARTS #1 AND #2 SEARCHABLE, IN FRONT OF THE EYES OF THE WORLD, AND ACCESSIBLE 24 / 7 / 365.

Werner As A Phenomenon

An acquaintance of mine, seemingly open to, yet already-always-skeptical of what Werner makes accessible, said to me "Laurence, Werner isn't Jesus, you know?" to which I responded "Well said, My Friend! That's exactly right: Werner isn't Jesus. Werner is Werner, and Jesus is Jesus. And listen: I've got some late-breaking news for you too: I'm not John the Baptist either. It's through getting to know who Werner is that I've come to know who I am, and to know who you are. I know what it is to share fully. Don't ask me to explain. This sort of thing isn't explainable. But it can be gotten (experienced for yourself).".

Around about that time, I started writing. And now there are nearly two thousand essays. That's what I said I would create - like a legacy. To this end, I've made arrangements for this website to perpetuate after I die. I also said I would create a distribution list with two thousand subscribers on it. Although it's almost there, I'm not as enamored with that idea as I once was, given that most of my readers these days aren't on my distribution list at all. The way they got here was by landing on this website discontiguously while researching Werner on the internet, or were referred here by others who had book-marked it.

I also have at stake (kind of like a goal) that this website will receive two million visits, yet not really believing it ever would (or could - it is my impossible promise). But not only is that not impossible (triple-negative aside), it's that there are new indications that even if I post nothing more to this website at all from now on, it will indeed reach that goal and welcome its two millionth view very soon - most likely as soon as a few months from now ie early next year.

In the annals of making transformation available in the world, Werner is something of a phenomenon, an enigma. Hollywood-handsome and jaw-droppingly brilliant in fields in which he has no formal education, he's yet somewhat of a regular guy. If you ask me "Where did he get it? How does it work?", I would answer: "I don't know.". They are interesting questions, to be sure. And what'll make them really interesting is when I bet you good money that he doesn't know how either. In March of 1971, a typical commuter was driving south over the Golden Gate Bridge, and along the way, he had a transformation. That's about the totality of it. Yet the day-to-day demands and components of his life were not much different than yours or mine. The mixture is disconcerting.

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