The Church of Scientology is one of the great inventions of the Twentieth Century. It is the creation of a science fiction writer who was not only a total crank, but who almost alone of his contemporaries, felt the strength of his vision so keenly that he would bring the future to the present. The others might think about trying to enlighten the world, about using the future to critique the present, to think about what might be. But L. Ron Hubbard, he looked about and said, I will start the religion of teh FuTuR. With aliens, and mental powers over the body, and transmigration of souls; Sometimes I feel like the way we see the Scientologists is the way the Greeks saw the Pythagoreans.
I was once drunk and bored and without a lot of money, walking with a couple of friends in downtown Minneapolis. We were heading to a party, but we had plenty of time to get there. As we were walking, I said, HOLY SHIT, THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY! THEY HAVE FREE PERSONALITY TESTS! LETS GO!
One friend ducked out and went to have a cup of coffee. But me and Isaac, we bopped on in, where we were given a multiple choice test, in format almost identical to the standardized tests that represent the keys to the gates of education in America. Having been a washout from University, I wasn’t up for it. I always hated these tests, so I just did the random thing. I made nice patters; christmas trees and so on. Isaac, a graduate student, could take a test as well as he could take his liquor (provided it’s not cognac), and dutifully (but easily) answered all the questions quicker than I did.
The man, with gray/blond thinning hair combed straight back, wearing a gray sweater that I normally associate with librarians, came back and took our test forms to correct them. We assumed he would scan them through a machine and have our results in a moment or two. So we excused ourselves to the restroom, took a shot off of my friend’s flask, and then I stole some coloring markers (my Scientology markers, which I kept for a long time; I told people I was saving them to draw something crazy). When we returned to the table where we had taken the test, we waited…and waited…we finally noticed that he was entering the results of the test into a computer by hand. And the computer looked like a 386. Maybe a 486. This was in like 2004. I remember thinking, Jesus, Tom Cruise better make another movie, because the Church is really going to hell. What was Elron thinking, out there in Outer Space, on his non-corporeal research trip into the cosmos?
Also, why were taking the test, my friend noticed (I didn’t) that the phone had been ringing fairly frequently while we were there, and the man kept answering, Hello, Church of Scientology Minnesota. I thought nothing of it. But my friend (who is perceptive) noticed that was all he said. He just would hang up after that. Was it wrong numbers? Did they have a similar phone number to some very popular or well used number? Or were they people angry at the Church, calling and yelling expletives? But in that case, I’m sure they’d just block the number.
My theory was this: They had set up an automated calling machine, maybe inside the Church building itself, and had it calling the main number every five minutes or so. This way when people were in the building, it would seem even more busy than usual. Now, to pull this off, the person answering the phone should say something like, Hello, Church of Scientology, how can I help you? Why yes, we do offer that service! Would you like to make an appointment?
But it’s kind of a drag. I mean, every five minutes, having to have a fake conversation? It’s one thing to talk to a real person every five minutes, but it’s another to have to invent a person to talk to every five minutes. Even if you take away the constant invention and have a nice cheat sheet of scripts to use, it’s still boring to play the same role constantly.
So like every job, he was slacking. He was still doing his job, but you know, he wanted to get by as easily as possible. Yes, praise Lord Elron. May he be exalted, etc. I deem you Clear. And so on. But as far as he’s concerned, that first hour of work is his, Elron-dammit, and leave him alone until he finishes his first coffee, and he’s had a chance to visit his friends who are working in the education center on the third floor. He’ll wander down to the staff room, maybe grab a doughnut, lazily say whatever the Scientology version of Grace is, and then he’ll be more than happy to get to work, thank you so much.
(We can maybe imagine this is why after inventing the idea of plurality God had to go through with it and really create it. It was just to hard to imagine plurality all the time. The universe tends towards entropy because the agents of the universe tend towards laziness.)
After using the E-meter and the spiel that he’s given a hundred times before, and telling us how depressed we were, he could tell, oh yes, look it’s right here on the graph (as if not realizing that using graphs to make a point is a technique that died when Ross Perot used them in the longest infomercial in American television history, and convinced the American people that if Ross Perot stood for anything, it was that he was boring as fuck).
He asked us if we watched the news on TV or read the newspapers. We told him that we were, indeed, well-informed individuals, full of information about the world.
Well, he said, why don’t you try, just for a couple of weeks, to avoid this sort of information. It’s almost always negative, he said, and it’s what’s depressing you. He said, Do this, and come back in two weeks, and take the test again, and I think you’ll find that you’re a lot happier.
And because I was drunk (because I am not normally such a daring smart ass), I looked him in the eyes, with deep seriousness, into the pale and faded blue surrounded by pale and faded blonde hair, eyes that had the look common to both kinds of Catholics; practicing and non-practicing: When you ask about religion, you’ll find that ex-Catholics and Catholics answer in the exact same tone of voice, one of weary resignation. And they both have that look in their eyes, that says, yeah, yeah, I know. So here was this Scientologist, eyes saying, yeah, yeah, I know. And when I said (out loud and not with my eyes), “So…ignorance IS bliss?”
And he looked at me, with his yeah, yeah, I know eyes, and said earnestly, Exactly. Like it was the first time he’d had someone come in and who had actually got it.
And that’s Scientology.