Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:08 am
Top News in Norway right now (Scientology and suicide)
The most important thing to learn about Life, the Universe, and Everything, is firstly; the answer is 42, and secondly; how utterly ridiculous it truly is
Ok, here is the last article on the exact story about Kaja. I have all three translated with images and set up as closely as possible to the original articles if anyone wants them.
Right now the storm seems to be raging about the uselessness of the stress test, hopefully this will launch an all out campaign against the CoS in Norwegian media.
(In addition; One of the papers was looking for tips of people with experience in Scientology, and linked them to this site and told them to get in touch with Astra or Jenna, if they do just relay them from there.)
”Would have been alive today had she not gone to the scientologists”
SV-top Olav Gunnar Ballo’s daughter Kaja only got to 20.
-Everything indicates that the Scientology cult has played a direct part in Kajas decision to commit suicide, says Stortingsrepresentative Inga Marte Thorkildsen. She met Kaja Bordevich Ballo for the first time when she was with her dad Olav Gunnar Ballo to Stortinget. Later Thorkildsen took a dance class with her.
-I believe Kaja would be alive today if she had not gone to the scientologists, says Henrik Möinichen (19), a close friend of Kaja from university. He saw her for the last time the morning when she took her own life.
Both of these have chosen to speak with Dagbladet with an understanding from Olav Gunnar Ballo. He and Kajas mother are also informed and understanding that Dagbladet talks about the issue.
-I experienced it as too early and too close to talk about what happened, says Ballo to Dagbladet. He is now back at work as SV’s member in the health-and care committee and as the vice president of Odelstinget.
200 questions
Last Wednesday he informed the SV parliament group about his daughter’s death and what was behind it. Two days later the family held a memorial after the funeral in the basement room of Stortinget.
Friday the 28th of March Kaja was present at the 9am to 11am lecture at the University of Nice with Henrik. Then she went shopping.
-She behaved like she always does, says Henrik Möinichen who lives in the same dormitory as Kaja.
Right next to the dormitory lies “L’eglise de scientologie - Mission de Nice” where the Church of Scientology and advertise with stress tests. There she walked through the doors, probably around 1pm, and took the so called Oxford test which asks 200 questions, amongst others; Do you read train tables, guides or encyclopaedias for fun? Is your voice monotone instead of variable?
This is the same test which the Scientology cult has been using for years across the globe to recruit members. Psychologists have warned about it for a long time. Based on the answers the scientologists how you are doing on a scale from plus one hundred to minus one hundred for a number of conditions, amongst others reliability and responsibility.
Kaja got a minus one hundred on the test and was declared unstable. In addition she was obviously very depressed, irresponsible, hypercritical and lacking harmony.
Left a note
The young student went home. A couple of hours later Kaja jumped out of her window on the fourth floor of the dormitory. In a bag in the apartment alongside a newly bought pair of pants was the form with the negative conclusions and a note where she apologised about not being able to accomplish anything.
-The conclusion was that she was incapable of doing anything about her life. This is so far from the truth as you can get. She has really managed to change her life which there is a huge amount of respect for. She had a bunch of friends, was incredibly perceptive and intelligent, says Inga Marte Thorkildsen.
When Kaja was 13 years old, she was hospitalised and the Univeristy hospital in Tromsø due to serious eating disorders. The year after, the fall of 2002, she had moved to Oslo with her dad. She was then admitted to the child medicinal care centre at Ullevål university hospital for the same condition. In January 2003 she was let out. The health politician Ballo, in agreement with Kaja, openly told the story about the family’s experience to get increased interest and more resources for treatment of others in the same situation. The last few years she has been completely healthy.
-When I met her for the first time, she was very ill. When I met her again a couple of years later at dance lesson, I didn’t even recognise her. She was now an incredibly extroverted and healthy girl who was happy with life and proud of herself. A standing tall, happy, and cool lady, says Thorkildsen.
Talked about the future
The univeristy friend Henrik got to know her in third grade at Oslo katedralskole. After high school they went to the University in Nice last fall.
-She was well liked by everyone and was doing fine with the studies and everything. I did not see any indication that something like this could happen. We spent a lot of time discussing the future, right up until the last minute. That’s why it came as a shock to us all that she took her own life, says Henrik Möinichen.
During the funeral last Friday the vicar Grete Hauge told a full Grefsen church about the conditions surrounding Kajas death.
Shock and disbelief
-Kaja was at the Church of Scientology and took a test a short time before she died the same day, confirms Hauge to Dagbladet.
Close to five hundred people attended the funeral, amongst those finance minister Kristin Halvorse and KrF*-leader Dagfinn Høybråten.
-We got to see pictures from all of Kajas live, talk to her friends, family, and teachers. Everyone was in shock because they saw Kaja as such a life-loving and healthy individual. No one understood how it could happen, says Inga Marte Thorkildsen.
-Do you think meeting the scientologists had a direct effect on her tragic decision?
-I don’t have the entire picture, but everything suggests that the scientology cult has played a direct part in the decision Kaja made of committing suicide. She must have been completely devastated by the test. I’m thinking that a part of these extreme groups are directly targetting those they see as vulnerable. They interpret your answers with the worst possible result and then stretch out a hand and tell you that they can help. The motive is to recruit and make money, says Thorkildsen.
Olav Gunnar Ballo has hired a lawyer, Stein Serradj, who is following the police investigation in the French Mediterranean city.
-The police are investigating the circumstances around her death, amongst others about how the visit with the scientologists was a part of the cause. We are awaiting the results of the preliminary investigation before we decide how we take the case further. It could come to a law suit against the Church of Scientology, says Serradj to Dagbladet.
Just a coincidence?
Dagbladet caleld the Scientology church in Nice yesterday afternoon.
-We read about in the local news and know that she was here. She came to get help in handling stress and took the test, confirms Caroline. She does not wish to give her last name, but says that she is the leader of the “church”.
-How do you react to the claims that you are directly responsible for her committing suicide?
-How can you say something like that? Between two and three thousand people take these tests every day across the globe. Never has anyone committed suicide because of them.
-So you are saying that it’s all a coincidence that she took her own life just few hours after she had gotten the negative results?
-Yes it is a tragic coincidence, says Caroline. She denies that the police have asked them any questions.
___________________________________________________________________________
Tested and skinned
The scientologists so called personality tests have undergone massive critic, but they claim that critics know all too little.
The controversial personality test Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) is to many the first meeting with the Church of Scientology. With about 200 questions the scientologists are trying to get new members. Critics claim that the scientologists will, no matter the test result, try to get you into courses of self improvement. This is how the church makes money.
Bad anyway
Psychologists, journalists, and many others have due to curiosity taken the test and experienced that the test result becomes very negative. The critics claim that the OCA-test is purposefully made so that the person taking the test is left broken and worried.
A reporter from the newspaper Daily Express says that after the test results were analysed, she wanted to crawl into a ball and never leave the house again.
-Apparently I was depressed, unstable, overcritical, bickering, and introverted, said the new reporter afterwards.
200 questions
The test consists of about 200 questions that can be answered with ”yes”, ”no”, or ”maybe”. A computer program is then used to plot a so called personality-profile-graph. The person taking the test is charactarised as stable, happy, controlled, active, aggressive, and responsible. The scale goes from +100 to -100.
The scientologists claim that this is a professional test which is uses 200 carefully chosen questions to get to the bottom of your personality. The test shows your strong sides, so that you can develop these, and the problem areas, “the things that block your true potential and happiness in life”, according to the Church of Scientology international home page.
Information secretary Mathias Fosse in the Church of Scientology Oslo has previously told Dagbladet that people who criticise them usually know too little.
-The critics are deliberately not talking about the positive things we do.
Dagbladet did not succeed in getting in touch with Fosse last night.
Unethical and dangerous
The critics claim that the standard of evaluation of the personality test is deplorable. The Swedish psychology professor Gudmund Smith at the University in Lund, concluded in 1981 that the test was in no way to be trusted, and in his view was unethical. The Lund-professor finds the test useless because the questions were openly leading, poorly formulated and full of double meanings. Smiths evaluation was made on assignment from the local district attorney who at the time were investigating a local branch of Narconon, which is based on the Church of Scientology.
The Australian psychology union is amongst those who have stamped the OCA-test as ”just plain dangerous”. It is not a basis for drawing the conclusions that are made, claimed the union.
Their British colleagues went even further in calling the method useless in 1970, and describe it as harmful. No respected psychologist would accept a system which is based on getting people in form the street, give them a personality test and give the feedback “unsatisfying”, “unacceptable”, or with “strong needs for immediate treatment”, claims the British psychology union.
