The Church of Scientology's Attempt to Exploit Their Perceptions of My Vulnerability

When I'd arrived in Los Angeles, I had received a kind of hair to go to a Scientology center - whether it was my inherent journalistic nature that was driving me or a kind of insatiable curiousity to dive into the path otherwise not treaded that spurred this hair I don't know. However, when returning from a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood my father and I came upon the L. Ron Hubbard Dianetics Center of Los Angeles, and suddenly an answer to all of my inquires presented itself. Therefore, deciding that our weary feet could wait, we pulled over and stepped in.

Upon entering, the place was the typical crisp, cold of an office building, but instead looked like it had at one time been a retail store, with all manner of counters removed, replaced with what looked like science fair poster boards. In many ways, what one would think of in terms of stereotypes awaited, as once we were allowed inside by the receptionist, we were greeted by a mounted, flat screen TV with a speech by Tom Cruise on loop. He was lecturing to an outdoor crowd about how Scientology was an important and valuable asset for young children, and spoke on a number of topics such as the Church's hefty donations to schools.

We were also invited to look over several of the mounted pictures, some of which were simply photographs of Hubbard giving speeches, others were gut wrenching pictures of men in red shirts that read that Scientologists were among the first to respond to 9/11, alongside New York Firefighters. I found the display rather tasteless.

I was greeted by a young looking woman, who invited me to take a personality test, which would confirm my compatibility with Scientology. Nevertheless, they and several others were very keen on keeping the name of their church in close reservation, specifically referring to Dianetics, which a DVD I was told to watch later informed me was a belief that we have certain mental barriers that, when we are wounded, allows others' opinions an mentalities to sink into us, as we allocate our time and energy to warding off the pain, rather than maintaining the protective shield.

I was sat down at a small school desk alongside a pair of visiting English cousins, who were vacationing in Los Angeles. They finished their tests as soon as I sat down, and were asked to go watch the DVD on Dianetics that I would later join in viewing. The personality test was simple and deviated little from internet personality tests in that it posed you with several moral choices as well as a few inquiries about your personal life.

My father, meanwhile, had been escorted aside to take what they called a stress test - which amounted to them sitting him down, holding two plastic "readers", and a "tester" sitting across from him monitoring a small, black device with several small, LED lights across it. The contraption, he tells me, was not particularly difficult to figure out - a squeeze of the readers caused the lights to turn on. However, the women surrounding him appeared to be largely ignorant to the way it worked, as they placed complete faith in its accuracy.

"So how do you like your job?" she asked him, watching the device intently. The lights shot up - the result of my father playfully squeezing the things in his palms. "Oh you hate your job?"

"Not at all," he answered honestly.

"That's strange," she responded, and the woman called her assistant over to check the machine for potential calibration errors. When they thought they'd fixed the issue, she asked, "So how's your relationship with your son?"

He squeezed again, harder.

"Oh do you not get along?"

"We get along great," he said with a genuine smile.

They ended up sending him along his way, while I handed in my test, and was urged to sit with the English vacationers. I sat down just as a man in glasses, on the television set, was talking about how he had never actually intended to leave his girlfriend. In truth, he had been in a car accident, and with his mental barrier down, one of the paramedics who had spoken about leaving his girlfriend, had imparted his thoughts into the man's head. Therefore, he took on the paramedic's thoughts as his own.

It played like an office safety video, with the same monotonous, female voice giving me advisories on how to avoid forcing my own thoughts onto victims of pain or suffering, usually through maintaining silence whenever someone is in pain. It gave an example of an astute, Scientologist mother who sees that her daughter is in pain after falling off her bike, and insists that those around her remain silent.

After a nearly fifteen minute wait, I was finally broken from my dianetic trance when a young man approached and said, "Chadd, we are ready."

I'd been brooding on how I would approach this for some time. How could I most effectively enter myself in a memorable fashion? The young man, he looked about twenty-five at the latest, had me sit at a small table across from him - and this was all effectively in the same room as the stress test, the poster boards, and the personality test desks.

"Well Chadd, any questions before we begin?" he asked, shuffling some papers in front of him.

"Yeah, so, what's my medichlorian count?" I asked, which bubbled a laugh in my throat that was not shared by my host. The man eyed me with an obvious disdain. He put the less than subtle Star Wars remark past himself though and outright ignored the question, going back to his papers.

"So everything reads about normal," he said, overlooking my papers, "except one thing here, let me show you."

He pulled up a document that showed a large number of graphs, showing that I was sociable, that I had self-confidence, and that I was intelligent - but the mountains of lines also said that I was "unacceptably depressed." I queried what exactly would be "acceptable levels of depression" and how exactly I was expected to rectify this.

Of course, most of the answers lied in joining the Church of Scientology, and purchasing a large number of books on Dianetics. He explained a number of key things based on questions I asked, such as how Thetans are "everyone on the planet", how South Park had a number of misconceptions (even if my entire visit closely mirrored the opening of the very episode I had not yet seen), and how Scientology was a religion compatible with any other religion.

"You can be a Christian or Muslim Scientologist, no problem," the man explained. I wasn't so sure.

In time, I explained that I needed to go, as it was indeed getting dark - and so he took my address so he could mail me the results later. I was tentative at first, but decided that it was worth it.

To my surprise, it was not three days later that I got my first letter: handwritten and asking if I was easily susceptible to abuse. It was amusingly worded, explaining that if I was, the Church of Scientology was the perfect place for me.

But as the letters kept coming, explaining more and more how my personal satisfaction was a $200 donation away, and how the world didn't love me without the Church of Scientology, I began to wonder if it really was a jocular misconception on my part to suggest that they were trying to identify my vulnerability before attempting to get me into the fold.