From: heldal@online.no (Andreas Heldal-Lund - www.xenu.net)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Summary of my lecture in Oslo
Organization: Operation Clambake
Message-ID: 37b554a7.8773318@news1.c2i.net
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 11:58:56 GMT

Hi folks,

I'm back from Oslo where I held a lecture at the university
about Scientology at a science-fiction convention (Norcon'99).

First I met with Magne Berge, the only SP9 in Norway, and
went together with him to meet some other key figures in the
fight against this criminal cult in Norway.

The lecture took 2 hours and there were about 3-40 people
attending (I'm waiting for a final count since I forgot to
do it). I'm personally very positive about the event and
the feedback was great. The auditorium was perfect and they
had a projector so I could show the lecture directly from
my laptop PC. Also got it connected to the loudspeakers so
I could play some sound examples during the lecture. A song
by the "great musician" L. Ron Hubbard set the tune ("I
write for you..."). I started with some disclaimers and a
couple examples of how Hubbard portrayed his adolescence
years, his grandfathers ranch and being the first Eagle
Scout. Then went on to his writer career and OTO. Explained
the basic concepts of Dianetics (the book DTMSMH and
engrams) and went on with how CoS was started and BT's etc.
You get the picture, I think I managed to cover the most
important issues.

There were no Scientologists who identified themselves during
the lecture, but I suspect the guy on row two who tried to
"secretly" film the event represented them somehow.

There were some interesting questions after worth, but no
critical ones directed at me or my lecture. Which was a
disappointment. :( I made it very clear that I represented
a critical view and I urged people to also investigate the
other side and informed them about the www.scientology.org
URL.

When I was packing up my gear I was informed that the
Scientologists was outside giving out some information and
I ran out to join the happy gang. They were 3 or 4, I was
so happy when I recognized Matthias Fosse, the Information
Secretary for CoS in Oslo (OSA), finally I got to meet him!
(Hei Matthias, jeg regner med at du leser dette. Det var
virkelig hyggelig å treffe deg og jeg håper at jeg kan få
invitere deg ut på en kopp kaffe neste gang jeg er i Oslo!
Ikke for å krangle eller forsøke å overtale deg på noen som
helst måte, men for at vi kanskje kan lære å skjønne
hverandre litt bedre. Vennligst gi beskjed hvis det er greit
at jeg kontakter deg.)

They were giving out this glossy 126 pages brochure about
Hubbard ("A Portrait") with 3 sheets of paper about me and
some rebuttal of claims they assumed I had made in the
lecture.

Page 1 was titled "Real heathens does not like religions -
How a heathen becomes an 'expert in religion' over night".
It's a rather hilarious piece, but no DA attempt on me.
Starts off with claiming criticism of religion is the same
as intolerance, which efficiently shows their true face
and lack of tolerance themselves. The page is signed by
Matthias and he goes on claiming I do not find any good
things about religion, which is just silly. Matthias is
a bright guy and he admits he has read my personal home
page. Therefore I assume he is aware that this is a
generalization and not even close to the truth. But I
suspect the truth does not matter for a Scientologists,
as long as their goal prosper on lies and half truths.

According to Matthias the claims about Hubbard wanting to
start a religion for the money is a quote from Eric Blair
(aka George Orwell) and two pages from a book is included
to "prove" this. I don't know what book it is, but the
pages are 303 and 304 and contains some letters from Blair
where he also makes a similar money and religion statement.
On the other side there are two affidavits (from David A.
Kyle and Jay Kay Klein) rebutting that Hubbard made such
a statement at the November 7 meeting of the Eastern
Science Fiction Association at Slovak Sokol Hall in Newark
in 1948. I don't doubt for a second that this is all it
takes for Matthias to refuse the other references to
Hubbard saying this. It doesn't convince me much, I got
more references showing otherwise. Funny that they didn't
dare to come in and listen to my lecture, then they could
have made their claims directly. That was what I was
prepared for. ;-)

Matthias goes on claiming I probably have read little of
the fiction written by Hubbard. But this is not relevant,
since I never made any claims about the literary quality
of Hubbard's fiction authorship. What I did present was
the methods used by Bridge Publishing to give Hubbard a
position among the authors of the Golden Period and how
bettering his reputation was part of a PR strategy to
promote Scientology. This is important to know for people
interested in science-fiction who are submitted to their
tactics. There is a difference in the acknowledgement
given to Hubbard and other writers of that period, since
when it comes to Hubbard there are additional motives to
make him look good as an author.

They also included two pages from issue two of ASI
Magazine (p. 20 and 21) with an interview with Dave
Wolverton. But maybe even funnier was my initial post to
ARS announcing this lecture. Matthias removed half of my
signature line which included the URL's to Clambake and
my personal home page (so much for "thinking for yourself")
and the end quote (as used in this post). But he forgot to
remove the URL from the From header, revealing the
www.xenu.net address. Great to see OSA spreading this for
me at their cost!!!

Magne Berge and I went outside with Matthias Fosse and had
a very interesting and long talk. Matthias is a very nice
and intelligent guy and as I tried to explain to him I do
not mind him believing in Hubbard or being a Scientologist.
There are obvious reasons why he feels it is justified to
make incorrect generalizations about me and my motives, I
trust people are able to see through it when they also
hear my side of the story. I found our talk very valuable
and it was a perfect ending of my lecture.

It isn't that hard to understand his view, and why we
believe so differently. Imagine a good friend is accused
of something and he denies it, who do you trust first?
Usually you will trust your friend until it is proven
beyond any doubt that he really is lying. Believers like
Matthias is in a situation where they want to think the
best of their church, they trust that CoS has good methods
of correcting themselves internally. If not they would
have to abandon something they like to believe in and
something they have invested a good portion of their life
in promoting. Matthias believes he has lived many times
and that Scientology gives him the answers, fair enough.
Of course you don't drop it just because someone comes
along claiming it is a fraud, you will defend it as
good as you can.

Matthias had to run to drive the other Scientologist back,
so we shook hands again and I wished him good luck in
reforming CoS from the inside. I also promised to continue
my efforts as a critic so that CoS is left no other
choice than to change. So far the good changes in CoS can
be credited the efforts of critics, and I see no signs of
our work being obsolete in the near future.

Some pictures are posted to ABS and scans of the documents
CoS gave out will be made available on Operation Clambake
when I get the time to do it. The lecture (MS Powerpoint)
will be translated to English and also made available on
request and as a web presentation.

Best wishes,                              SP4  &  Adm. TOXE CXI
Andreas Heldal-Lund,  Normannsgaten 9, N-4013 Stavanger, Norway
Pho: +47 88 00 66 66 Fax: 90 32 35 46  E-mail: heldal@online.no
home.sol.no/~spirous     www.xenu.net    www.hedning.no/hedning
---------------------------------------------------------------
"There IS life, love and friendship.... after $cientology."
                               - said by a former Scientologist