Articles

Los Angeles Mensa's Three-hour Tour of Mormonism

Mensa in the Los Angeles area holds a conference every year the weekend of Presidents Day, and I was invited to speak for an hour about Mormonism and ex-Mormonism at their 2006 Regional Gathering on Sunday, February 19th.

Many local Mensa groups hold conferences like this one annually, and they remind me very much of the Exmormon Conferences that our Foundation holds each year in October. They're just about the same size, and they last for about as long. The difference is that Mensan gatherings are about various subjects, not just ex-Mormonism, and may include such topics as the science of earthquake prediction, the history of Tarot cards, information about clinical hypnosis, brewing beer, male/female relationship issues, and much more. (And, as you might expect, there's plenty of gaming and puzzle solving and socializing going on at these events too!)

(At this point I should probably point out that Mensa does not endorse The Exmormon Foundation, and officially holds no opinions ... about Mormonism or anything else. I was asked to speak as someone who knows a lot about this subject, but not in any way that endorses the Foundation or its aims.)

I was asked to speak for an hour, and I really tried to limit myself to that amount of time, but when I got started, I was delighted to find that my audience was fascinated by what I had to say, and at their insistence, one hour became two which became three, and still my audience didn't want me to stop. (Eventually we finally had to stop just because another presenter needed to set up in the room; otherwise I'm sure we would have kept right on going ... for another hour or two at least!)

I recorded the whole presentation, and I am pleased to make it available here for those who are interested in what I had to say. I've also included a copy of the PowerPoint slides that I used as an outline (available in PDF and PowerPoint format). Those materials are available as follows:

• Download, low-quality (9 MB, suitable for modem)
• Stream, low-quality (suitable for modem)
• Download, higher-quality (18 MB, suitable for broadband)
• Stream, higher-quality (suitable for broadband)
• Slides (Adobe PDF)
• Slides (Microsoft PowerPoint)

I welcome questions, comments and corrections regarding anything I had to say in that recording. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you'll let me know what you thought of it.

Brian Madsen