Department Of Sometimes It Takes Me Some Time To Get Back To Something…
Something like this:
“Moiself could (and may, eventually) share more stories re my encounters with Scientology adherents at UCD. “
This teaser was from one department of my May 3 blog post ( The Czechoslovakian Freedom Fighter I’m Not Housing ). This department shall be repeated here before I go on to share the more stories:
Department Of All-Time Great Pranks
This slice o’ life story is courtesy of the six degrees of separation principle vis-à-vis my [1] neurons making the connections that they…just make, sometimes.
Dateline: last Saturday 7:45 AM-ish; walking. The podcast I was listening to reminded me of some actor, [2] who reminded me of another actor, which reminded me that one of those actors is either currently or formerly a Scientologist, which brought to mind one of the greatest pranks ever played on me, which occurred when I was in college at UC Davis.
Way back then the town of Davis had a very active Scientology Center. I use the term Center deliberately – there was no “Church of Scientology” at that time, [3] a fact that Scientologists boastfully emphasized in their recruitment efforts. When a Scientology proselytizer knocked on your door or approached you on the campus quad, and you as the average student/citizen had no interest in taking the time to challenge Scientology bullshit beliefs, it’s likely you’d use some version of the customary brushoff:
“No thanks/not interested, I have my own religion.”
The eager beaver Scientologist would scoff, “Religion?!? Scientology is *not* a religion!” The Scientology recruiter would use that as an entryway into assuring their target that there’d be no conflict in learning about Scientology – “which, *not* being a religion, would not require any renouncing of your personal religious beliefs – which is a proven/effective method/philosophy combining spirituality and Science ®, to handle stress and show pathways to healthy and successful lives….”
Moiself could (and may, eventually) share more stories re my encounters with Scientology adherents at UCD. Instead, the afore-mentioned prank, which discerning readers will surmise has something to do with Scientology, will now take center stage.
My college boyfriend “Scott,” [4] no fan of any supernatural beliefs (including the religions of the dominant culture, one of which I pretended to believe in, at the time), considered Scientology to be the most egregious example of spiritual and intellectual quackery. As a student who would go on to get undergraduate and graduate degrees in several scientific disciplines, Scott particularly objected to the cult’s organization using the word science in any way shape or form.
I knew that Scott had visited the Scientology Center at least once, to check it out, after I’d amused him with my tales of encountering Scientology recruiters on campus. Scott and his best friend “Bruce” returned the favor, amusing moiself and a couple of my apartment mates one evening when they showed up at our apartment, pulled out a small tape recorder from Bruce’s book bag, and played back Scott’s session with a Scientology auditor which, unbeknownst to the auditor, they had surreptitiously recorded with the tape recorder hidden in Bruce’s book bag.
The tape’s audio wasn’t all that great, but we could hear enough to be both flabbergasted and highly entertained, as the auditor asked Scott a series of questions while Scott grasped both handholds of the infamous Scientology E-Meter.
The E-meter is (was? Are they still using that batshit crazy thang?) a crude electronic device meant to mimic a polygraph, and was used by Scientology auditors (“counselors”) to purportedly “examine a person’s mental state.” [5] In terms of sophisticated electronic devices, Scott described the E-meter as perhaps one or two steps above using a “telephone” consisting of two tin cans connected by kite string.
One evening about a week after Scott entertained us with the E-meter tape, I heard a knock at my apartment door. My three roommates and I had a lot of regular visitors to our apartment, most of whom just opened the door and announced their arrival – so, someone who actually bothered to knock was something different, maybe even special. When I opened the door I beheld a young man standing on our welcome mat. He was carrying some kind of satchel and a piece of paper with a name and address on it. He looked at me, then past me to my three (all-female) roommates who were in the living room, then down at his paper, then his eyes traveled back up to our apartment door. He asked if this was 224 A St. apartment 16? When I replied in the affirmative, he said that he was here at the behest of a man named “Victor Lazlo, who visited the Scientology Center and expressed a desire to ‘get clear.’ “
VICTOR LAZLO ?!?!?! [6]
Had I been sipping a beverage there’s no way I could have avoided a classic spit take.
Young Scientology Man seemed undeterred by my and my roommates’ scarcely muffled guffaws. I got rid of him by throwing him a bone, something ala, “Oh, yeah, Victor – he moved back on campus,” and giving him the dorm address of a male friend of mine. [7]
* * *
And Now, The More/Eventually Story To Be Shared
Moiself was fairly adept at deflecting the various proselytizers that you’d typically find on a college campus in the late 1970s. The usual suspects included Christian evangelicals, Hare Krishnas, survivors acolytes of EST (the devotees of which were referred to as ESTholes by the rest of us), even Rolfing.
Yes, really. Strange, how something which started out as a kind of massage/physical therapy devolved into claiming it could provide physical and mental health benefits by balancing the human body’s “energy field”…stranger still was the number of rabid Rolfers moiself encountered at UCD.
Once again, I digress.
As entertaining as Rolfers and ESTholes could be (for EST, read: annoying over entertaining), after my first encounter with a L. Ron Hubbard patsy devotee, shaming and/or battling Scientologist recruiters was, for a brief but glorious time, my forte.
That first encounter occurred on one late autumn night during my freshman year, when moiself decided to take a study break outside. Reveling in the briskness of a chilly but non-rainy, non-cloudy evening, I sat on a small grassy knoll outside of my dorm, and enjoyed the peace of looking up at the stars twinkling (they really do that) in the crystal clear sky. I enjoyed the solitude; save for some guy on the patio by the dorm entrance ( he was fiddling with his bicycle – changing a tire? ) I had the grounds to moiself.
After about five minutes I noticed two people walking on one of the paved paths which led from the central campus to the student living complexes (which included my dorm). They saw me, exchanged brief words with each other, and the guy headed toward me while the girl headed for the guy on the dorm patio.
This, I was later to learn, was the MO for Scientology recruiters: establishing an “in” with the possibility of heterosexual flirting. Translation: if you were female, a male Scientologist would seek you out, and if you were male, a female Scientologist would be your initial “encounter.” Of course, I didn’t know he was a Scientologist at first glance, but he soon revealed his motives.
My Scientology would-be boytoy was handsome, friendly, and persistent in trying to establish a rapport with me. He began a (one-way) conversation in which he tried to elicit from moiself some hidden reasons as to why I was outside at night, sitting on the grass, alone. Perhaps there was something troubling me, with school, or my life? He used to feel alone, even confused, until he found something that made a huge difference…and he’d like to share that with me.
Moiself found him amusing (which was not his intent), but basically harmless; he was only slightly nonplussed when I told him that, sorry to disappoint him, but there was nothing ulterior about my mood or motives – I’d just come outside for a study break, to be alone (AHEM) and savor a few moments of non-academic peace before heading back to finish a paper.
When I returned to my dorm I told several friends and dormmates about the encounter. I found out that what to me was a new experience – being “hit on” by a Scientologist – was a common thing for many students. Upon hearing their stories, I became genuinely curious about those wacky Xenu [8] fans, and sought out the opinions/experiences of resident advisors, professors, local journalists, and journalism students. One of my journalism-crowd friends (MJCF) interned with and later wrote for the LA Times, where he established a relationship with an older LAT reporter who’d known L. Ron Hubbard, the sci fi writer who founded Scientology. The older writer is one of several people who’d heard Hubbard’s declaration, “You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.” MJCF also told me how Scientologists used threats and intimidation and aggressive lawyering, against journalists and civilians, to quell investigations into their organization. Eventually I went to the university library to expand my research, further developing my interest – “interest” as in the kind of morbid curiosity which makes you turn your head to look at a gruesome traffic accident as you drive past the carnage – in the organization.
During my sophomore year I moved from the dorms to an off-campus apartment. My apartment mates and I subscribed to the local Davis newspaper. The Scientology Center in Davis bought advertisements in the paper, which consisted of a questionnaire ( “personality test”) which was inserted, along with ads for the local grocery stores and other advertising inserts.
The Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA), also known as the American Personality Analysis, is a list of questions which is advertised as being a personality test and that is administered for free by the Church of Scientology as part of its recruitment process….It has no relation to the University of Oxford, although the name may have been chosen to imply a link.
The test is an important part of Scientology recruitment and is used worldwide by the Church of Scientology to attract new members. However, it is not a scientifically recognized test and has been criticized by numerous psychology organizations, who point out that it is not a genuine personality test and that Scientology recruiters use it in a highly manipulative and unethical fashion.
( Wikipedia entry for OCA )
That insert, along with the other ad flyers, usually got tossed by whichever apartment mate picked up the newspaper. One night a friend and I read through the questionnaire before tossing it. It was hilarious. We joked about actually filling it out, turning it in to the Scientology Center, and seeing what would happen. But I had another idea.
I was taking a required class for my major – the name of the class escapes me, but it had to do with statistical/data gathering and data analysis, including survey and questionnaire design. [9] One day I stayed after class and presented the professor with the Scientology personality test. He literally squealed with joy as he read through it, and begged to keep my copy – he said he wanted to use it in his next class session, as the ultimate example of a poorly designed questionnaire. It was filled with at least a dozen examples of questionnaire design no-nos, including double- and even triple-ended questions; questions that require presumptive or unknown knowledge; questions framed as yes or no questions but which could not be truthfully answered with a yes or no….
The professor thanked me profusely for providing him with what he said was hard to come by – a real life example of shoddy questionnaire design. He said that typically, when he’d get to the vital topic of questionnaire and survey composition, students were bored by the subject, particularly if they only had theoretical examples to discuss. Sure enough, one day the following week he devoted a good deal of his class lecture time to presenting and discussing that epitome of an excruciatingly poorly designed questionnaire, which, he crowed, contained within it every example he’d been teaching us re the type of substandard and misleading questions which would give you faulty data.
During my years years living in off-campus apartments, while spurning the other religious proselytizers who’d occasionally darken my doorstep, I maintained a soft spot in my heart for the pathetic Lost Boys of Scientology. I learned as much as I could stomach about the cult, and actually invited a few newbies (who were fulfilling some kind of mission duty by doing the door-to-door thing, which they readily admitted to when I questioned them about it) into my apartment. After charming/disarming them with my joi de ivre and seeming interest, I peppered them with info they didn’t know, including Scientology history, the whereabouts of L. Ron ( who at that point in time had seemingly disappeared [10] ), and questions and critiques about and of the cult that they could not counter. At that point most of them left skid marks getting away from me and out the apartment door, although one memorable, forlorn soul meekly and gratefully accepted my referral to the UCD student mental health center ( for help in getting clear of Scientology ).
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [11]
My children know how to distinguish fact from fiction — which is harder for children raised religious. They don’t assume conventional wisdom is true and they do expect arguments to be based on evidence. Which means they have the skills to be engaged, informed and savvy citizens.
( excerpt from “America doesn’t need more God. It needs more atheists.”
Opinion, Washington Post 10-3-23, by Kate Cohen, columnist and author of
We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe [and maybe you should, too] )
* * *
May we stop pretending to believe what we don’t think is true;
May we stay clear of cult recruitment;
May we remember that cults are just religions
with less money/influence/effective public relations;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] In olden days referred to as “the six handshakes” principle, Six degrees of separation is the theory the idea that anyone can be connected to any other person via six or fewer social connections – that is, a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. For example, let’s say that, despite having never been to China or having met him, moiself claims to have a connection to Chairman Mao Zedong, to whom I am connected, six-degrees style, via my sister-in-law who is from Canton, whose great uncle was an aide to a vice president of the Chinese communist party who served under Mao. (BTW, my SIL is from Canton, but that’s the only part of that example that is true….I think).
[2] An actor who was not mentioned in the podcast…but, there it is.
[3] The Internal Revenue Service did not recognize Scientology as a “charitable and religious organization” until 1993, after a 37-year dispute and controversial negotiations.
[4] Not his real name.
[5] As in, if used by a properly trained (ahem) auditor, the device can allow the operator to “see a thought” and uncover hidden lies and other thought “crimes. “
[6] A key character in the movie Casablanca, Victor Lazlo (played by Paul Heinreid) was the heroic Czechoslovakian resistance leader, and unintended rival to (Humphrey Bogart’s) Rick Blaine for the affections of Ilsa Lund, Lazlo’s wife (played by Ingrid Bergman).
[7] Damn! All these years later, I think I’d forgotten to ask them if the guy ever showed up.
[8] Xenu is a figure in the secretive “Advanced Technology” teaching. The story of Xenu is normally/only revealed to members who have completed a lengthy and expensive sequence of courses – Scientology avoids mentions of Xenu in public statements and has tried to maintain the story’s confidentiality…but, hello, internet and ex-Scientologists spilling the beans.
[9] The class was as hair-pullingly boring exciting as it sounds, but vitally important for budding grad students in the social sciences (I was prelaw, majoring in Criminal Justice major).
[10] (excerpt from Wikipedia Life of L. Ron Hubbard from 1975 to 1986: “….Hubbard went into hiding while his wife Mary Sue ran the Guardian’s Office. During this period, his second son committed suicide, two (Scientology) agents were caught in the act of theft at IRS headquarters as part of the Church’s Operation Snow White, the FBI simultaneously raided two Scientology compounds on opposite sides of the USA, discovering 90,000 incriminating documents and tools of burglary and espionage. The criminal trial of 11 high-ranking Scientologists resulted in prison sentences for all, including Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue. Hubbard was an unindicted co-conspirator and remained in hiding until his death in 1986.
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
