by Gouda » Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:51 am
Really good story in there. Here is the moment of truth, when Norwegian Andreas Heldal-Lund (anti-scientologist) and Bezazian (former rabid scientologist) converse after Heldal-Lund had kindly given advice to Bezazian about her online posting style. From the lermanet link DE posted: <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Writing in the first person plural as if she were a group of Scientologists, Bezazian asked Heldal-Lund on July 14 to explain how he could maintain such a horrific Website. "What is your actual goal?" she asked.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"This is like asking for my meaning of life," the Norwegian responded. "I care when I see injustices. I don't like lies and fraud. I'm especially sensitive to lies and deceit that few oppose because there is a threat connected to doing so.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> I saw this when I investigated [the Church of Scientology.] I'm not saying...that all scientologists are bad...I believe they are good people with the best intentions....But they are (in my opinion) misguided and wasting their good efforts and time..."<br><br>Bezazian realized that everything Heldal-Lund was saying in this and several other early messages in their correspondence -- about his belief in openness, free speech and the search for truth -- were the tenets that she believed had always been at the core of her own being. Instead, Bezazian says, she admitted to herself that she'd been living very differently, encouraged by Scientology to lie continually. To lie to others about how well Hubbard's tech was helping her life, to lie about how much she was enjoying herself on OT VII, to ignore the truth about the excesses and inconsistencies of an organization she'd belonged to for so long.<br><br>She knows now that spending weeks debating critics on a.r.s. had prepared her for this moment. The arguments she encountered there -- about the Lisa McPherson case, the raids in Europe, about the high price of reaching OT levels and dozens of other topics -- had increasingly rung true for her. "It was like the critics were beginning to poke holes in the walls of my Truman Show," she says. "Sunshine was starting to pour inside."<br><br>She uses another analogy: For 30 years she had constructed her life like a skyscraper made of playing cards. Participating on a.r.s. had yanked away so many cards that only one remained holding up her entire belief system.<br><br>And then Andreas Heldal-Lund gave that card a pull.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"In the long run I believe that my ethical acts towards [Scientologists] might have some small positive effect," Heldal-Lund wrote on July 17, responding to Magoo's query about why he seemed so much more polite than some other church critics. "I don't believe in single acts saving anybody, it's the sum of many that do the trick," </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->he added, writing that he had occasionally received e-mails from former church members who thanked him for his efforts to provide well-researched information critical of the church.<br><br>-snip-<br><br>"Andreas telling me to believe in myself -- that's what changed my life," she says.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>