On Friday night, a number of UK suppressives (plus foreign guests) foregathered at a Chinese restaurant for an evening of wining, dining and suppressiveness. Afterwards, being in the neighbourhood of the Tottenham Court Road 'Org' some of the evil pawns of Xenu decided to wander past the 'Org' for an impromptu photo session. After the photos had been taken, the regular receptionist on the weekend and evening shift emerged to tell us to get off Scientology property (a line about two feet in front of the window displaying posters for 'What is Scientology'). After we had all shuffled ourselves across this line, he smiled triumphantly, turned on his heel and walked straight into the closed glass door of the 'Org'. Obviously his OT powers should have enabled him to pass though the door, but his hidden crimes plus the presence of the massed suppressives caused him to 'pull in' a nasty nose-door collision in full view of the staff, the suppressives, and the whole street.
We wandered, full of hilarity, along the road, and were seated outside a nearby hostelry when who should come past but our old and confused friend Jacques Vollet of OSA. Clearly he was worried by our appearance, and sought to demoralise us by explaining that Hubbard's views on Venus were supported by such a great authority as Immanuel Velikovsky's book "Worlds in Collision".
After the suppressive Chinese meal followed by enturbulation of the Tottenham Court Road 'org' in London on Friday night, alert Scientologists may have deduced that a picket was planned for Saturday afternoon. They would have been correct, only the picket was in Brighton, about an hour away by train. The Brighton 'org' is located at the edge of a shopping precinct near the centre of town, but on the top floor of a small office block, presenting only a blank door and an entryphone to passers-by. We were rather nonplussed when we first arrived as the space underneath the org was occupied by a Colombian pan-pipe band, and the Socialist Workers Party were noisily canvassing for the re-nationalisation of the railways in front of them. But we selected a free zone actually in front of the org's door and stretching down to the 'Lamb and Flag' for placarding and leafleting. Soon the SWP went away and the pan-pipers took a long break, giving us the opportunity to raise our voices. Awareness of the evils of Scientology was very high in Brighton, with people thanking us for our work and hardly anybody even in doubt as to how bad Scientology was. We only saw about half-a dozen Scientologists all afternoon, as they scuttled in and out of the door. Two did a brief bit of leafleting with the 'Think for yourself' flyer well away from us, and they were all totally 'non-confront'. Whatever they paid for their 'Communication Courses' was wasted and the Course Supervisor needs serious re-training as the only words uttered to us all afternoon by the Scientologists were 'Why are you here?' and two words suggesting sex and travel.