I was rummaging through my notebook the other day and found a piece of paper that I can’t believe I haven’t posted yet. My scientology test. See, when I was in LA this summer, I stopped into one of their recruitment centers.

Although I had gone over there hoping to be invited in so I’d have a story to tell, they brought me in by asking me if I’d give them my opinion on a new film they had made. Being on Hollywood Blvd, I guess they have a lot of passersby who have opinions on film, so this must be a useful conversation starter (much like the name dropping I overheard from other employees must be useful for bringing in Walk of Fame tourists) The nice old man who was assigned to me was doing his darndest to explain reactive mind to me, but the giant lcd screen behind him blaring Tom Cruise’s excited rambling meant every ounce of mental energy I had was directed toward maintaining the poker face.

Then, he asked me to take the test. There were 200 questions. The strange thing was, it seemed to be trying harder to confuse me than get a read on my personality. There were a lot of double, triple, even quadruple negatives… “Would you not consider yourself unlikely to be slow to anger?” (I took it months ago, I don’t remember any actual questions) and when I found a word on the test that I did not know the definition of, they said that they couldn’t tell me what it meant (or let me look at a dictionary).

After I finished, we sat down to discuss the results. As you can see circled above, there were two problem points. First was the difference between happiness and stability.  Happiness was at +70, but my stability was in the warning zone. He explained that this means that I’m an unhappy person.

“I feel pretty happy.” I said. But he explained that this was just by reactive mind, tricking me into thinking I was happy. “Well, it’s good.” I replied.  ”because I am living my dream life, and I feel so great about it, I can’t imagine being happier.” He confirmed that this was an illusion. He illustrated this point by drawing the stick figure to the left.

I politely disagreed with his estimation that stability equaled happiness. We agreed that the low score was caused by the fact that I’m constantly traveling, living in new places, having new jobs, and new friends. I pointed out that these were actually things that made me happy. He politely disagreed. I just thought they made me happy, because my reactive mind was clearly trying to get me to run from something.

Then, he expressed concern in the difference between my scores for “correct estimation” and “appreciative”. Apparently, I am very judgmental and look down on other people.  I explained that I really didn’t think that was true. I am constantly traveling the world and meeting new people of every walk of life, and I consider each and every person I meet my equal. I don’t harbor negative thoughts for anyone. He explained that that was not true, my reactive mind just think that other people are so unworthy of my attention, that it tricks me into assuming the negative thoughts I have for them are deserved, and therefore don’t count as negative.

The only way to be truly happy and appreciative of others, as opposed to thinking you’re happy and appreciative of others, two states that are apparently so indistinguishable that only a scantron test can tell them apart, I was informed, was to join the church of Scientology.

And then he offered to sell me a copy of Dianetics. Oh, and I took the other test where you hold the two tin cans in your hands while a needle moves back and forth on a machine. Apparently the movement of the needle implied that I’m scared of my mom. 

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