Recently I was walking through Times Square with my best friend on our way towards Penn Station, to catch the next train back to Jersey, and we passed these tables set up on the sidewalk. On top of the table, I saw a bunch of books displayed, emblazoned with the title "Dionetics".
"Dude!!" I hissed, slapping her arm, "Scientologists! Let's go take that stress test and talk to them."
She paused and gave me an "I-really-don't-want-to" look. I dragged her over and we sat in separate chairs as young fanatics in suits with otherwise bright futures hooked us up to machines that looked like they were made by third graders and coated in silver plastic paint. I was told to hold lightly onto an aluminum cylinder that, when I sqeezed slightly, made the needles on said machine jump. My fanatic began to ask me questions.
"So," he said, "tell me about yourself."
"Well...(about me)"
"What's your family like? Do you get along with your mother?"
I began to think about the last conversation I had had with her, about something or other she wanted me to do, or I needed to do, and the needle on the machine began moving slightly into the "danger, I'm stressed" zone.
"Ahhhh," he said all-knowingly, "does your mother make you stressed out?"
"Unlike any other mother in the country, yes, mine makes me anxious sometimes."
We plunged into a twenty second conversation about what she does to make me stressed, and the things in life in general which get to me (which get to all people) concerning the mundane trivialities we fill our days with because we insist on continuing life the next day in a mildly comfortable fashion. At the end of this, he takes the cylinder out of my hand and says,
"Look I think that you're pretty stressed out, and that's normal. But (he lifts up a heavy $45.00 copy of Dionetics) have you ever heard of this book called Dionetics?"
I nodded and smiled slightly in a playful nonbeliever way. He continued, non phased,
"Well, this was written by a man named Elron Hubbard, and it deals with the daily stresses of life and ways to cope with that stress."
"Oh yeah," I said as though I had heard a story about the book fleetingly on the news one night, "isn't this the text that Scientologists use in their religion?" His smile faltered.
"Well, Scientology isn't really a religion, it's more of a -- a --"
" -- philosophy -- "
"Yes, exactly, a philosophy. We don't ask you to believe in a higher power, and we don't have prayers. This is just a way to live your life, and a guide to do that without stress."
I eventually shook off the sales pitches he was aiming at my wallet and told him that there was no way I was going to be purchasing the book, but that I would very much like to read through it while I was there. He gave me a card with directions to the Church of Scientology on 48th street, and I didn't mention the fact that the word "Church" was included.
From behind, I heard a debate gaining in intensity between my best friend (a cognitive science graduate from Vassar College) and her fanatic in pinstripes, concerning how it is impossible for her to blindly believe in anything without having any information to suggest that it might hold water. It took me about ten mintues to drag her away from the table I had to intially drag her up to, and we parted ways.
The point of the story is, Scientology preys on the weak minded and the generous, and that is dangerous, because if the basis of the religion (at least how it is presented) is a philosphy on how to live stress-free, that is enticing to many an individual who has been let down in their dreams and is slowly succombing to the woes of everyday life. So keep your minds strong and stay aware, because Scientologists can make their religion sound like a philosphy all they want, but bottom line, its an ever growing mob of ridiculousness and it has already infiltrated at least one branch of the government.
Sorry for the long-windedness, but I enjoyed writing that.
