Culture Review: Scientology Personality Test
Dianetics Dilettante Dispatch
Prelude
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I embarked on a quest to learn about Scientology straight from the source, in the new Scientology headquarters (church?) of Chicago’s South Loop. I signed up for a screening of their Dianetics Movie, followed by a personality test. When I informed a friend of this, her reaction was as if I had decided to join the Marines or walk around late night in Rio De Jeneiro with a shirt bragging about my two working kidneys and widely compatible blood type. “Oh my god, aren’t they going to like, brainwash you?”. While I appreciate the concern, it’s interesting that Scientology has this kind of leprosy-like reputation, where being in its presence will strip agency from rational adults. It’s of course good that we err on the side of caution with deranged cults, but I wonder if this is counterproductive in addressing people that are on the fence and decide to check it out anyway. When they go over there and find normal-seeming people, they dismiss the reputation and consider going again. My understanding is that Scientology uses a basic form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to reel people in, then starts slowly turning up the crazy. Thankfully, I have 3 older sisters, so years of bickering have rendered me immune to therapy(Love you guys). Nonetheless, I do feel some amount of concern, especially after giving them my actual email, like the one I made when I was 12 with my real name. Before going, I prayed a rosary and drank green tea to increase my psychic defenses, or at least remind myself that I’m too much of an independently erratic weirdo to ever join a cult.
On my train into the South loop, I am surrounded by Cubs fans on their way to a game, and people going to a JoJo Siwa concert. I don’t know who JoJo is, but she appears to have invented being gay. Being flanked by these two different fandoms reminds me of the importance of group identity. There are worse things to get yourself into.
Walking past the center, I am struck by how the entire building is creepily covered in shades, and opposite to a Crossfit gym. Crossfit gyms have a way of being placed ironically. The last one I saw was by a construction site, where you had people getting paid for manual labour next to people paying to do manual labour. Upon entering, I note the aggressive air conditioning and a sickly sweet smell. I see a few T.Vs with early 2000s coded buttons to play short videos, and rows upon rows of L. Ron Hubbard’s books. Everyone is dressed like an evil waiter, with a black vest and gold bowtie. At the front desk, two very young-looking guys greet me and tell me to wait for the personality tester. I ask how they were introduced to Scientology, and they say it was their parents. That’s rough, buddy. My tester is an older man with kind blue eyes and curly white hair who tells me to wait and look around while they get ready. They have a banners explaining their opposition to drug dealers and psychiatry, and a cafe where you can buy oversized muffins for $1.
The older guy returns with the test, and makes a big show of sharpening my pencil for me. He leaves again, and talks with an older woman who seems to be in charge, who says something like “You have the charisma, so you can talk to this young man after the test …”. They have this weird way of referring to personality traits like physical objects. I look at my test. I gave them a fake address, which they misspelled on my test. You know religion is on the downswing when Scientologists can’t even stalk you properly. As for the test itself, pretentiously called the “Oxford Capacity Analysis” test, they have about 200 true, neutral, or false questions about basic personality traits, and they almost all have a “right” or “wrong” answer that would indicate a positive or negative quality.
Some of them are just fuckin weird, like asking me if I “consider the modern ‘prisons without bars’ system doomed to failure”, and if I would “strike a 10 year old child if it disobeyed me”. I finish the test, and the white haired man tells me that no one ever finishes the test that fast, a very limp-wristed attempt at flattery. He has someone come in to transcribe my answers to a computer, so he can “interpret” it. Their entire operation seems to not have progressed past the release date of Mission: Impossible 3, either in aesthetics or technology, seemingly in a covenant to prevent Tom Cruise from aging.
Amazing. More waiting. I thought cults were supposed to be charismatic and enchanting, but I might as well have gotten my dry cleaning done. In the cafe, a youngish guy wearing a tan shirt with “welcome” and “peace” written on it in different languages over a globe has an exceedingly bland conversation with a Scientologist about apartments. In fairness, I don’t know what his deal was, maybe he was an irony dickhead like me trying to subvert them. But he did seem to fit the mold for the kind of person who still joins Scientology. I avoid using the “NPC” comparison, because everyone perceives themselves as the oh so special free thinker, while their political opponents are unthinking conformists. However, I think it does apply to a minority of people. I’m not talking about liberals or Trump supporters here, as having any kind of political engagement today necessitates at least a little distrust in some authorities and institutions. Some guys out there really just see a big building offering to improve your life, and think, “well, they’re wearing a suit, how could they be wrong?”
While I wait, a woman in her 30s wearing a pantsuit with a gold tie talks over an earpiece (an earpiece!) with someone, saying ‘yes sir’ to him. It’s been so long since I’ve heard someone refer to an actual superior as ‘sir’. Generally, the only time you get called sir up North is when you get an Uber or become too intoxicated to remain in an IHOP. I think I’m beginning to piece together their ideology. They seem to idolize Leave it to Beaver style social conservatism, essentially the Protestant work ethic minus the Protestantism. The old guy finally comes back, and leads me back into the room where I took the test. He sits behind a desk and shows me a graph of personality traits with numbers and lines.
Their supposed masterful psychological manipulation is becoming apparent, and a little disappointing. Normally when you get called in front of a desk and shown a graph, you default to thinking that the person must be an authority. He tells me about how according to the test, I’m depressed, irresponsible, critical and uncertain. On the plus side, I have a high “comm level”. At this point, any fear of brainwashing has left me. I’ve been hating on myself way longer and better than any of these rank fucking amateurs.
I try to push back without sounding instinctively hostile. When I say that everyone’s got problems, but I’m doing alright enough, he insists that “these are the facts”, and that the test is “my opinion of myself”. I’m not one for debates, I think it’s much more interesting to give people the chance to spell out their worldview without descending into defensive pedantry. However, I have essentially devoted to this entire blog to railing against life advice with ulterior motives. I’m not locked in here with him, he’s locked in here with me. I point out that they can’t be both true, that this is an objective measure of my life but is based solely on my perception of my own traits. I also note that we lack the ability to truly evaluate ourselves anyway due to the limits of our perspective. He makes a weak reference to the test being based on “technology”, and tries to drop the subject. I honestly start to feel a little bad for him, both for his life situation and being subjected to my wannabe existentialism. Maybe I came here not to confront a great spiritual evil, but to gawk at the crazies and pat myself on the back for being relatively rational. Here is a man who has devoted a large portion of his life to a transparent fraud, and just wants to cling to whatever meaning he has left. Even as he tries to bring in more people, I almost want to just let him have it. I ask how he was got into Scientology. He says a coworker introduced him, and he started seeing immediate benefits to his life. He is 72 years old. He has never married.
As I leave, he tries to sell me L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics book for $25, and a DVD. I am no longer worried about Scientology filling the mystical void in modern people’s lives. “You’re a loser and a fuckup, now give me $25” is everyone’s pitch these days. They made a lot of headway as the first self-improvement grifters, but they fell behind the times. At least if you pay the Crossfit gym down the street you’ll get some half pull ups in. I try to explore the second floor, only to have Dianetics Girlboss rather unnecessarily grab my arm and tell me it’s off limits to the public. It’s probably for the best anyway. I emerge back into reality, or Chicago at any rate, thinking that this would be the worst possible time to run into someone from high school. I feel sorry for everyone involved in the last 2 hours of my life, and a little regretful that I never raised the Xenu Question. Outside, life continues as normal. Michelle Obama smiles at me from a bookstore window. The radio version of “Nothing Matters” by The Last Dinner Party plays outside of a juice bar. I am nearly run over by a USPS van. Yes, there’s all kinds of bullshit going on with my life and the world, but maybe I take it for granted. I have my soul, and it’s my bullshit to do with as I please, not Tom Cruise’s . A woman asks me for help interpreting Google Maps. I’m lost too, but I try to do what I can.
