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